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GEORGE WASHINGTON 



A HISTORY OF THE 
UNITED STATES 



BY 

HENRY ELDRIDGE BOURNE 

AND 

ELBERT JAY BENTON 

PROFESSORS OF HISTORY IN WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY 



REVISED 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



t-l7<3 
,1 

i9Z\ 



BY BOURNE AND BENTON 



INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN HISTORY 

Presents the course recommended for the sixth grade 
by the Committee of Eight of the American Historical 
Association. Cloth. Maps and illustrations. 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Gives prominence to the life and industries of the peo- 
ple, and to the development of the nation. Cloth. 
Maps and illustrations. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, iqi^ and 1921, by 
D. C. Heath & Company 



SEP 
©CIA622649 



PREFACE 

For a little over a decade the plan of the Committee of Eight, of 
the American Historical Association, for the sixth, seventh, and eighth 
grades, has been before the public schools of this country. It has been 
increasingly recognized as marking a distinct step in advance. The 
plan sought to give the development of our country a truer historical 
setting : first, by reviewing, in the sixth grade, the simpler features 
of the European origins of civilization, and, second, by recalling, in the 
seventh and eighth grades, as appropriate topics suggest, the European 
background, or the tendencies in European history which illustrate 
the influence of forces similar to those acting in American history. 
This textbook, together with a shorter book, entitled Introductory 
American History, designed for the sixth grade, seeks to carry into 
effect the plan of the Committee. About two- thirds of that book 
concern the beginnings in Great Britain and Europe of the civilization 
which the people of the United States share with other peoples of 
European race. The remainder contains descriptions of the discoveries 
and early settlements in America, principally in the sixteenth century. 
This volume for the upper grades opens with a chapter which repeats 
briefly the story of early discovery and settlement. The chapter may 
be used as a review in those schools which use the Introductory American 
History. Teachers who do not use that book will find in the chapter 
the essential facts of the period. 

The authors are gratified by the wide acceptance of both books. 
Indeed, the use has been so large that it has become necessary to re- 
set the books and to make new plates. This has given the authors an 
opportunity to revise, and in many parts to rewrite, the history in 
accordance with the spirit and needs of the schools after the Great 
War. In particular, the space devoted to the history of the colonial 
period has been reduced, in order to give greater attention to the 
history of the country since the Civil War. 

It is the aim of this, as well as of the previous, edition to emphasize 
those matters most important for young people to know, not only 
that they may understand how the United States came to be what it 
is to-day, but also that they may interpret historically, and therefore 
soundly, the questions that are now pressing for solution. The authors 
believe that while pupils of the seventh and eighth grades should under- 
stand the elements of our political history, its more complex aspects 
should be reserved for later study. One of the insistent needs of effec- 



iv PREFACE 

tivc work in history is a wise jading of material. If overemphasis " : 
political history is avoided, space will be found to treat adequately 
other phases of the life and labor of the people during the different 
periods of our development. The success of Americans in organizing 
civilized life over so vast an area in three or four centuries has been a 
work the magnitude of which may wel awaken the interest of every 
pupil. With this point of view in mind it is natural that the authors 
constantly emphasized the westward movement. 

Another factor which has received unusual attention is the geographi- 
cal setting of American history. This has not been done in an inci- 
dental or perfunctory manner, but as a most important mode of pre- 
senting historical facts. The pupil has been studying geography for 
several years and should realize that his work is of immediate utility 
in the study of a kindred subject. The teacher who will turn espe-'X 
daily to chapter II, The New Country and Its Barriers, or to the chap- 
ters on the Revolutionary War and the Civil War will see how the 
geographical explanation has been utilized. 

In this edition effort has been made to supplement and improve the 
maps. Many new illustrations have been used. 

The appendix, as before, gives a summary of the principal political 
events, with the names of the Presidents and Vice-Presidents, and of 
defeated candidates for the Presidency, the dates of the admission of 
states, with their area and population. 

The authors again wish to express their thanks to those who have 
aided them with helpful criticisms. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Discoverers and Explorers i 

II The New Country and Its Barriers 16 

III The Founding of Virginia 22 

IV The Exiles for Conscience' Sake at Plymouth 34 
V The Beginnings of New England 43 

VI Maryland, a Refuge for English Catholics. . . 56 
VII Dutch and English Rivalries: Beginnings of a 

Great State 62 

VIII A Second Great Emigration 71 

IX The French Rivals 86 

X How the Colonists Lived 97 

XI How the Colonies were Governed 112 

XII Conquest of the French Colonies in America 121 

XIII Why the English Colonists Became Revolution- 

ists 136 

XIV The Outbreak of War 149 

XV The Birth of a New Nation 158 

XVI Life in War Time 170 

XVII How the French Helped the Colonists 179 

XVIII The Difficulties of the New Republic 192 

XIX Starting the New Government 204 

XX The United States and Europe 215 

XXI Rule of Jefferson: A New West 227 

XXII The United States and the Napoleonic Wars. 240 

XXIII The War of 1812 249 

XXIV New Work and New Routes 259 

XXV The March of Population Westward 271 

XXVI Government by the People , 283 

XXVII Problems of the New Democracy 291 

XXVIII Neighboring Countries Bring on New Ques- 
tions 306 

XXIX How the United States Won the Pacific Coast 315 

XXX A Great Domain, New Tools, and Willing Hands 324 

XXXI The Question of Slavery 336 . 

XXXII A Divided Nation 350 

XXXIII The Beginning of Civil War 361 

XXXIV Story of Victory and Defeat 373 

v 



VI 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXXV Conquering a Peace 385 

XXXVI Peace and its Problems 396 

XXXVII Neighbors and Rivals 405 

XXXVIII New Leaders and New Problems 413 

XXXIX The Prairie States 423 

XL New Methods of Working 432 

XLI The New South 443 

XLII The Last Barriers » 450 

XLIII Laborers of a Great Nation 458 

XLIV The New Education 467 

XLV The Republic and the Larger World 477 

XLVI New Methods of Government 486 

XLVII The Great War in Europe 498 

XLVIII The United States in the World War 514 

Appendix 

Chronological Summary of American Political His- 
tory i 

Population at the Beginning of the Period of Inde- 
pendence x 

Area and Population of the States and Territories ... x 

Ten Leading Cities of xii 

Declaration of Independence xiii 

Constitution of the United States xvi 

Index xxix 



LIST OF MAPS 

PAGE 

Map of the World, showing the United States and its Possessions 

cover page 2 

A Globe made before Columbus Discovered America 4 

Map of the New World 7 

The New World according to a Map-Maker of 1540 9 

Map showing Five Famous Voyages of Exploration 15 

Supposed Extent of North America 16 

The Great Mountain Barrier back of the English Settlements.. . 17 
Map showing Natural Features and Native Tribes of the United 

States between 18 and 19 

Map of Early Virginia 24 

Captain John Smith's Map of New England 37 

Plymouth Harbor 38 

Country about Massachusetts Bay 45 

New England in the Seventeenth Century 51 

Parts of North America Occupied or Explored, about 1650 55 

Early Settlements in Maryland 58 

New Netherland in 1655 — According to the Dutch 67 



West Indies . 



72 



The Middle Colonies 75 

The Carolina Coast 78 

Charleston Harbor 79 

Settlements in Georgia 81 

Map of La Salle's Explorations 88 

Map of Portages in New France and the Illinois Country 93 

Eastern North America at the Beginning of the French and Indian 

War 122 

The Ohio Country and the New French Forts 124 

Route of Braddock's Expedition 128 

Boston, Bunker Hill, and Charlestown 153 

Reference Map for the Revolution — Northern and Middle States 

facing 166 

New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania 167 

Mountain Trails and the Western Country 176 

Reference Map for the Revolution — Southern States facing 184 

Cornwallis's Wandering Campaign at the South 185 

Sketch Map of Yorktown 187 

vii 



Vlll LIST OF MAPS 

PAGE 

Our Country in 1783 192 

Land Claims of the Thirteen Original States facing 198 

The Northwest Territory after Wayne's Victory 213 

The Louisiana Purchase 230 

Lewis and Clark's Route 234 

The United States in 18 10-12 facing 238 

Pike's Route 236 

Europe at the Height of Napoleon's Power 247 

Lake Erie and the Surrounding Country 251 

Route of the National Road, 1812-1840 266 

Map of the Erie Canal 268 

The United States in 1820, showing the Missouri Compromise. . . 277 

The United States in 1825 between 282 and 283 

Map showing the Disputed Boundary of Maine 293 

Map of the Republic of Texas 308 

The Principal Western Trails 311 

Territory acquired from Mexico as the Result of the War. . .facing 316 

The Oregon Compromise 317 

Map of the Mexican War 318 

Railroads in Operation in the Northern States in i860 325 

Territories from which Kansas and Nebraska were erected 342 

The United States in 1861 facing 352 

Map of Forts in Charleston Harbor 356 

Map of Campaigns in Virginia 369 

The Line of Defense in January, 1862 373 

Reference Map for the Civil War, 1861-1865 between 37 4 and 37 5 

Territorial Growth of the United States, 1 783-1 867 between 406 and 407 

The United States, Canada, and Mexico 409 

How the Country was Divided in the Election of 1896 420 

Principal Railroads West of the Mississippi in 1884 424 

The Advance of Population in the West, i860- 1870 426 

The Advance of Population in the West, 1 880-1 890 427 

The Cross-Roads of the Pacific 479 

Relief Map of the Panama Canal 482 

Routes Passing through the Panama Canal 483 

The Balkans in 1914 499 

Battle Fronts 5*5 

Map showing the Effect of the Panama Canal on Trade Routes 528 
Map of the United States and its Possessions cover page 3 



A HISTORY OF THE 
UNITED STATES 



CHAPTER I 
DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 

The Work of Three Centuries. — The history of the United 
States is made up of many different histories. Each part of 
the country, the East, the South, the Mississippi Valley, 
the West, the Pacific Coast, has its separate story, as well 
as a share in the common story of the whole Union. We 
have state histo- 
ries and histories 
of towns and cities. 

The story 
changes not only 
as we go from 
place to place, but 
also as we leave 
our own day and 
go back to the 
days when our 
grandparents or 
great-grandparents were young, or even to the period when 
our history begins, three or four hundred years ago. At 
that time the United States was forest, prairie, and desert, 
the haunt of wild animals and Indians. It was an unexplored 
land. Its history opens, therefore, as a tale of discoveries, of 
long voyages over unknown seas or expeditions by strange 
rivers and dark forest paths. After this comes the story of 
early settlements or colonies along the Atlantic Coast. 
Then follow tales of struggle with Indians or other Europeans, 




Manhattan Island as it Appeared to the 
First Explorers 



2 DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 

like the Spaniards and the French, who were eager to win the 
country for themselves. Finally the colonies unite and be- 
come the United States, no longer ruled from across the 
Atlantic, but an independent nation. 

As many interesting events have happened since Inde- 
pendence Day as happened before it. There are stories 
of settlements beyond the Alleghenies, in the valley of the 
Mississippi, and of the way in which adventurous men and 
women crossed plains and mountains until they reached the 
Pacific Coast. We are told how they built towns and cities 
in the new lands, how they made the fertile prairies produce 
wheat, corn, and grass, and how they dug gold, silver, copper, 
and iron out of the mountains. Another part of the story 
explains how people in the older, as well as in the newer, 
states constructed railroads and canals, launched steamboats 
on rivers and lakes, and built up new and "great industries. 

The history of our country has almost as many threads 
as a wonderful tapestry. It is not always easy to follow 
the separate threads and see what each contributes to the 
picture. Then, too, there are threads which belong to the 
story of older peoples, for much of our manner of living was 
learned before our ancestors crossed the seas. To under- 
stand our own history and civilization we must know some- 
thing of the countries where our ancestors lived before they 
came to America. 1 Here we must begin with what is called 
the Period of Discovery. 

Three Great Discoveries. — It is not necessary to describe 
in detail the early discoveries ; it will be enough to state 
briefly the main facts. The most important voyages of 
that period were made by Bartholomew Diaz, Christopher 
Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan. All three wore in 
search of a route to the Indies, the Golden East about which 
Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler, had told the world. Eu- 

1 See Introductory American History for a brief account of that part 
of its civilization which America owes to the Old World. This volume 
also contains a fuller account of the discoveries than is possible in the 
present chapter. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



ropeans had usually obtained from the Venetians the spices, 
drugs, and silks of India, China, and the islands off the 
coast of Asia. The Venetians purchased them in the eastern 
Mediterranean, at ports where the ancient caravan routes 
from the East ended. In the time of Columbus it was be- 
coming dangerous, on account of the wars, to bring east- 
ern goods overland, and all the bolder sailors were eager 
to find a sea route to the 
Indies. 

Bartholomew Diaz. — Diaz 
was a Portuguese captain. 
Many Portuguese before him 
had attempted to go far 
enough down the coast of 
Africa to find the southern 
point, and, passing it, turn 
northward again toward India. 
He was successful in 1487, 
although he did not reach 
India. As he had shown the 
way, another Portuguese cap- 
tain, Vasco da Gama, eleven 
years later reached India and 
brought back to Portugal a 
rich cargo of spices. 

Christopher Columbus. — Meanwhile Columbus, a Genoese 
sailor, who had once been in the service of Portugal, but 
now was in the service of Spain, formed a more venture- 
some plan. He believed that he could find his way to spice- 
bearing islands, and even to the coasts of China and Japan, 
by sailing westward across the Atlantic. Many sailors in 
those days feared the Atlantic asa" Sea of Darkness " full 
of dreadful monsters, but Columbus had been on voyages 
with the great sea-captains of Genoa and Portugal, and no 
longer dreaded to go far out of sight of land. 

A Famous Voyage. — With three small ships Columbus 
left Spain on August 3, 1492, He visited the Canary Islands, 




Christopher Columbus 

The oldest known picture of Columbus, 
in the National Library, Madrid 



DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 



and on September 6 turned the prows of his ships due west 
into the wide and unknown Atlantic. Columbus thought 
the earth smaller than it really is, and therefore that a 
voyage to the coast of Asia would be short. He also imag- 
ined that the Atlantic would contain many islands which 
he would find on the voyage. At first all went well, for the 
winds blew steadily from the east, wafting the ships along. 
But as the days passed, the sailors began to wonder how they 




A Globe made before Columbus 

DISCOVERED AMERICA 
This globe was made in Nuremberg in 1492, and is still preserved. It shows the 
Atlantic Ocean as Columbus thought of it 

could return against those winds. Columbus sometimes had 
great difficulty in keeping them from open mutiny. For 
nearly five weeks he kept sailing westward. He encouraged 
the sailors by promises of a prize to the one who should first 
see land. Signs of land finally appeared, and on October 12 
a small island was discovered. Columbus named it San 
Salvador. It was probably the present Watling Island. 
Columbus soon found many islands on every side. When 
he came upon a large body of land which the Indians called 
Cuba, he sent two messengers to search for the emperor of 
China, who, he thought, must live near. He was bitterly 



A FAMOUS VOYAGE 5 

disappointed when they found neither an emperor, nor cities, 
nor gold, nor even spices. 

Misfortunes of Columbus. — When Columbus returned 
to Spain he was received with great rejoicing and was 
honored by the king and queen. He made three other 
voyages to America, discovering other islands in the West 
Indies and parts of the coast of South and Central America. 
As he failed to gain riches for himself or his followers, he 
became unpopular. Once he was taken back to Spain in 
chains like a common prisoner. Though his last days were 




Caravels of Columbus 
After the model shdwn at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, i8g3 

saddened by misfortune, every one now regards him as 
the greatest of the discoverers. He had done more than 
start the search for another way to India — he had also 
started the exploration of a New World. 

Discovery of the South Sea. — In 15 13, seven years after 
the death of Columbus, a Spanish planter, named Balboa, 
discovered the Pacific Ocean, which Columbus had not even 
seen. Balboa and his followers marched from the shore of 
the Caribbean Sea through the dense forests of the Isthmus 
of Panama, taking twenty-two days to go forty-five miles. 
From the hilltops they finally discovered a vast sea stretch- 



DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 



ing south and west. Balboa called it the South Sea, and 
this name was much used. The ocean which Balboa saw, 
Magellan soon afterward crossed. 

Ferdinand Magellan. — Magellan was a Portuguese like 
Diaz and Da Gama, but like Columbus he had entered the 
service of the king of Spain. He hoped to find a route 
to the Indies past the great continent which lay across 

the way that Columbus had cho- 
sen. The Portuguese were already 
trading not only in India, but also 
in the Spice Islands, and Magellan 
became familiar with that region 
while in their service. He sailed 
from Spain in 15 19 with five ships, 
and spent a year in searching the 
coast of South America for a 
passage into the ocean on the 
other side. At last he made his 
way through the strait since named 
for him, the Strait of Magellan, 
and sailed out into the Pacific or 
Peaceful Sea. His task was now 
Magellan Monument on to cross the Pacific, which was 
Mactan Island wider than he supposed. He suc- 

This monument marks the spot ceeded, although his men suffered 

where Magellan was killed in a tcrribly before they reaC hed the 
battle with the natives of the Phil- 

ippine islands Ladrone Islands, where they ob- 

tained a supply of food. Soon 
afterward he reached the Philippines, but was killed in a 
fight with the natives. One of his ships found its way back 
to Spain by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. Al- 
though Magellan died before the voyage was ended, the fame 
and honor of having sailed around the world, and having 
proved that America is not a part of Asia, but separated 
from it by a great ocean, belongs to him. The route to the 
Indies which he discovered was, however, not as convenient 
as that followed by Diaz and Da Gama. 




THE NAMING OF AMERICA 7 

The Naming of America. — It seems strange that America 
was not named for Columbus. A great river, many cities 
in the United States, the District of Columbia, in which 
Washington is situated, and a country in South America, 
called the United States of Colombia, are named for him, but 
the American continents were named for another explorer, 
Americus Vespucius. Americus wrote about his discoveries 
much more than Columbus did. The people of the day 
either did not know what Columbus had done, or had for- 




Map of the New World 
Made after the discoveries of Columbus and Balboa 



gotten it. One of them who was writing a geography sug- 
gested that the new lands be named for Americus. This was 
copied from one geography into another until everybody 
began to call the new continents America. 

A Passage to the South Sea. — When the early voyagers 
learned that America was not merely a group of islands off the 
coast of Asia, they wished to explore it, partly to find a pas- 
sage to the South Sea nearer than the Strait of Magellan, and 
partly to find gold, silver, precious stones, and other treasures 
which they heard about continually. Some of these explorers 
accomplished great things, while others were disappointed. 



8 



DISCOVERERS AM J EXPLORERS 



Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico. — Two explorers wore also 
conquerors. They were Cortes and Pizarro. At that time 
a chief named Montezuma reigned in Mexico over a people 
called the Aztecs. Montezuma had treasures of silver and 
gold in the city of Mexico, and these Cort6s undertook to 
capture. After fighting for two years he was victorious, lie 
then ruled over the country in the name of the Spanish king. 

Pizarro, Conqueror of Peru. — Pizarro did in Peru what 
Cort6s had done in Mexico. The booty which the Spaniards 
seized in Peru was greater than they found in Mexico, amount- 
ing to nearly seven million dollars in gold, besides a great 



B— — ■FTBlli" ■ .g&gglg.r-. 




» •;•§&>«>.' 



View of the "South Sea" prom Panama 
In 1513 Balboa, a Spanish planter from the island of Espanola, crossed the Isthmus 
of Panama and from the hilltops along the western edge looked out southward on 
a vast sea which he called the South Sea. 



quantity of silver. The mines of Peru, as well as of Mexie< >, 
were very rich, and the Spaniards were able to send silver 
and gold home to Spain. 

De Soto, Discoverer of the Mississippi. — Two other 
Spanish leaders were not so successful. They were De Soto, 
the governor of Cuba, and Coronado, a friend of the viceroy, 
or governor, of Mexico. In 1539 De Soto crossed over from 
Cuba to Florida, which was also a part of his dominions. 
He had heard tales of a country rich in gold mines, whose king 
was sprinkled every morning with powdered gold, and lie 
brought together a large band of followers in order to search 



DE SOTO 9 

for this Gilded Man or El Dorado. The army wandered for 
four years, much of the time in a half -starved condition, 
over a region now lying within eight southern States. They 
treated the Indians cruelly and were often attacked by 
them. In these battles the Spaniards lost most of their 
baggage. It became necessary for them to use the skins of 
wild animals for clothing. Finally they discovered a great 
river which the Indians called the Mississippi. For another 







The New World according to a Map-Maker of 1540 

year the explorers wandered west of the Mississippi through 
the forests and swamps now within Arkansas. Here, worn 
out by hardships and ill with malarial fever, De Soto died 
and was buried secretly in the waters of the Mississippi. 
His followers were afraid that the Indians, if they knew 
of the death of the leader, would kill the whole band. The 
explorers sought in vain for rich treasures such as Cortes 
had found in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. Scarcely half of 
the original six hundred survived, The remnant of the once 



IO 



DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 



fine army built boats and floated down the Mississippi and 
found their way to Mexico. 

Coronado, Explorer of the Southwest. — Coronado and 
De Soto at one time nearly met on the plains west of the 
Mississippi. Coronado started in 1540 from western Mexico, 
near the Gulf of California. He planned to find the Seven 
Cities of Cibola, which he hoped would be as rich in booty as 

Mexico or Peru. But 
the Seven Cities of 
Cibola existed only in 
the imagination of the 
Spaniards, who be- 
lieved that centuries 
before seven Spanish 
bishops, fleeing before 
their heathen ene- 
mies, had crossed the 
ocean and built seven 
great cities. The only 
cities that Coronado 
found were the pue- 
blos of the Indians — 
gr» nips of houses made 
of stone and sun- 
dried clay. Corona- 
do's army did not 
give up its search 
until it reached the 
region now included 
in Kansas. This was in 1541, when De Soto was distant only 
nine days' march. They then turned back, a sadly disap- 
pointed band of men. 

St. Augustine, the Oldest Town in the United States. — 
None of Coronado's or De Soto's followers cared to settle in 
the lands which they had explored. They had not found that 
for which they were looking. The principal Spanish settle- 
ments for many years were in Mexico, Peru, and Cuba. 




An Indian \'ii 1 age 

After a drawing made in 1585 now in the 

British Museum 



ST. AUGUSTINE 



II 



About twenty years after De Soto's expedition the Spanish 
king sent Menendez to Florida to found settlements. In 
order to succeed he was obliged to drive away the French, 
who had recently built a fort near the mouth of the St. John's 
River. Menendez had another reason for attacking them ; 
he was a Roman Catholic and they were Protestants. Most 
Frenchmen were Catholics, but these men were Protestants. 
In those days Catholics and Protestants did not live peaceably 
together. The French 
called the settlement Fort 
Caroline, 1 after the king 
who reigned in France. 
In the battles which took 
place Menendez was suc- 
cessful, and he either 
killed or drove away all 
the French. The settle- 
ment which he founded in 
1565 was called St. Aug- 
ustine, and it is the oldest 
town in the United States. 

Spanish Emigrants and 
Indians. — The king of 
Spain did not encourage 
his people to cross the At- 
lantic to his new lands, and the result was that the settlements 
grew slowly. But by the year 1600 about 200,000 Spaniards 
were living in America. Besides, there were 5,000,000 Indians 
on the mainland, many of whom they had taught to live like 
Christian men and women. Many of these Indians were 
gathered in villages or " missions," where they were taught by 
priests or monks. Unfortunately, most of the Indians in the 
islands of the West Indies soon died from disease and from 
the hard work which the early Spanish planters and gold- 
seekers had compelled them to do. To take their places the 
Spaniards had begun to carry negro slaves over from Africa. 

1 Named for King Charles, whose name in Latin was Carolus. 




The Old City Gate at St. 
Augustine 



12 



DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 



First French Attempts at Settlement. — Fort Caroline 
was not the only settlement that the French had attempted 
to make. Thirty years earlier, in 1534, Jacques Cartier had 
explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and found the St. Lawrence 
River. In the following year he sailed nearly 400 miles up 
the great river as far as the present city of Montreal, where the 
Lachine or China Rapids blocked his 
way. Six years later he returned 
with a band of settlers, but the in- 
tense cold and danger from the In- 
dians made them anxious to return to 
France. S<> the colony was given up. 
First English Attempts. — The 
English had also tried to make settle- 
ments in America. In 1407. while 
Columbus was still living, John 
Cabot, another Italian, obtained a 
ship from the English king and sailed 
westward across the stormy North 
Atlantic. He reached the coast of 
North America, but just where is not 
known, except that it was in the 
region of Nova Scotia or Labrador. 
For many years the English seemed 
to forget about the lands which he 
had discovered and claimed for the 
king of England. 

But English sailors watched the 
Spaniards in the West Indies and in 
America, and envied them the riches 
they were gaining. During this period also England and 
Spain became enemies. Occasionally an English captain 
would plunder Spanish ships or towns just as if he was a 
pirate. The most famous captain in England at this time 
was Francis Drake, who sailed into the Pacific Ocean, robbed 
Spanish ships off the coast of South America, and finally 
found his way back to England by the route which Magellan's 




Cabot Memorial Tower 

Erected at Bristol, Eng- 
land, in memory of the first 
sailor from England to visit 
America 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH EXPLORERS 



13 



sailors had followed. Queen Elizabeth made him a knight 
to reward him for his success. 

Another Englishman, Sir Walter Raleigh, made several 
attempts to plant a colony on the coast of what is now North 
Carolina. He called the region Virginia, in honor of Eliza- 
beth, the "Virgin Queen." One of these colonies, led by 
John White in 1587, was made up of about 150 persons, 
including 25 women 
and children. While 
White was in Eng- 
land seeking to ob- 
tain supplies and aid 
for the colony, the 
settlers were either 
scattered or mur- 
dered by the Indians. 
No trace of them was 
ever found. 

A Century's Suc- 
cess. — Thus, at the 
end of a century of 
discovery and explo- 
ration, only one set- 
tlement, St. Augus- 
tine, existed within 
the present limits of 
the United States. 




Sir Walter Raleigh 

After a painting in the collection of the Duchess 

of Dorset 



But the knowledge of the earth had been wonderfully in- 
creased. It was certain also that in a few years the men of 
western Europe — English, Dutch, French, and Spaniards — 
would rival one another in founding settlements. 



Questions 

1. What great work has been done by Americans in three hundred 
years of history? 

2. In what ways were the explorers and early settlers better off 
than the Indians ? 



14 DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 

3. Where did the early emigrants to America obtain their knowl- 
edge? 

4. Who were the three greatest discoverers? Why did they make 
their voyages ? 

5. Why was America named for Americus Vespucius rather than 
for Columbus ? 

6. Who conquered Mexico? What other Indian country was 
conquered at about the same time ? 

7. What portions of the United States did De Soto explore? Coro- 
nado? What settlement did the Spaniards make in North America? 

8. How did the Spaniards treat the Indians? Who took the place 
of the Indians in the West Indian Islands as laborers for the Spaniards ? 

9. What part of North America did the French explore ? Who was 
their first great explorer ? Why did he go up the St. Lawrence ? Where 
did he attempt to settle ? Why did he fail ? 

10. What part of North America did the English explore? Who 
wen their explorers? Where did the English attempt to settle? 
Why did they fail ? 

Exercises 

1 1. Make a list of the tools and machines which settlers had three 
hundred years ago and which we have now. 

2. How many years ago was the first settlement made in your part 
of the United States? Draw a line representing three hundred years 
and below it a line representing the age of your town. What is the 
oldest building, or road, or railroad, or canal in your region? 

3. Prepare a list of the principal explorers and conquerors with 
the places which they discovered or conquered, and the dates. 

4. Study the maps of this chapter for the effect of discoveries and 
explorations on the knowledge of the New World. Make on the black- 
board or in a notebook a copy of Behaim's globe, page 4; add coast 
lines and countries discovered or explored by Columbus, Magellan, Do 
Soto, Coronado, Cabot, and Carrier, in order to show the growth of 
knowledge as a result of their combined work. 

Important Dates: 

1492. The discovery of America by Columbus. 

1 52 1. One of Magellan's ships completes the first voyage around 

the world. 
1541. The discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto. 
1565. The founding of St. Augustine. 



FIVE FAMOUS VOYAGES 



15 




CHAPTER II 



THE NEW COUNTRY AND ITS BARRIERS 

Unexplored America. — In 1600 most of the region now 
included in the United States was not even explored. The 
followers of the unfortunate De Soto had floated down 

the Mississippi to its 
mouth, and Coronado 
had marched over much 
of the Southwest, but 
neither they nor the 
other Spanish adven- 
turers attempted to ex- 
plore the region thor- 
oughly. The French had 
gone no further than the 
Lachinc Rapids on the 
St. Lawrence. The vast 
plains and forests of the 
upper Mississippi Valley 
had not been seen by 
white men. And yet 
these lands were a prize 
richer than Mexico or 
I \ ru, not because of silver 
Supposed Extent of North America and gold in the treasure- 
Map showing where the English, Dutch, and housesof imaginary cities, 
French ^.lorcr* of about 1600 expected to but because of the wealth 

find the South Sea ' kean . . . 

of sou, forest, and mine, 
which would some day give work to millions of men and 
women. 

The Appalachian Barrier. — The early settlements were 
made on the Atlantic shore or in the St. Lawrence Valley. 
Adventurous men were eager to explore the country west- 

16 




THE APPALACHIAN BARRIER 



17 



ward. But none of them were able to guess just what 
it looked like. They still thought the South Sea and the 
route to Asia were not far away. A mapmaker nearly fifty 
years after Jamestown, the first successful English settlement, 
was founded, said that the " Sea of 
China and the Indies " was only 
ten days' march from the head of 
the James River. As Columbus 
had found a barrier continent in his 
attempt to reach Asia, 
so the settlers found a 
mountain barrier in 
their way. To under- 
stand their task it is 
necessary to see what 
sort of an obstacle this 
barrier offered. 

Jamestown was 
built upon the 
coastal plain, 
which rises only 
a few feet above 
sea-level. Back 
of the coastal 
plain, sometimes 
as far as 150 
miles, is a broken 
country, like New 
England in ap- 
pearance, called 
the Piedmont, 1 

and still farther back, a range of mountains. This range, 
the Appalachian Mountains, presented for 1,300 miles an 
almost unbroken wall to the advance of explorers or settlers. 

Nature of the Barrier. — The Appalachians do not form 
a single barrier, but a system of barriers. Their eastern 
1 Piedmont: French for "foot of mountain." 




Note how far north and 
south this mountain barrier 
extends, making it difficult 
for the early settlers to 
move far to the west 



1 8 THE NEW COUNTRY AND ITS BARRIERS 

ridges fall away into low hills in eastern Pennsylvania, the 
highlands of New Jersey, and the palisades of the Hudson. 
In Maryland, Virginia, and farther south, they form a moun- 
tain range, called the Blue Ridge. West of these ridges, or 
of the hills which prolong them, lies the Appalachian Valley, 
also full of ridges difficult to cross. Still farther west rises 
the steep slope of the Allegheny and Cumberland plateau, a 
thousand or more feet in height. In Pennsylvania this is 
called the Allegheny Mountains. The western slope of 
the plateau falls away gradually towards the Mississippi 
River or the Great Lakes. 



The Mohawk River 

This is the easiest passage-way from the Hudson Valley t<> the Great Lakes. The 
Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad follow this natural route to the West 

The Mohawk Passage. — The only real break in the barrier 
is the valley of the Mohawk, a river which flows into the 
Hudson near Albany. There the barrier sinks to a height 
of only 445 feet above sea level. Farther south the passes 
or passage-ways arc from 1,500 to 3,000 feet high. 

The Westward Flowing Rivers. — In the south as well as 
the north the rivers show the natural routes across the moun- 
tains. Explorers going up stream along' rivers which cross 
the coastal plain, passing through the rough Piedmont coun- 
try, and climbing the mountains beyond, would find that 
they were not far from the head-waters of rivers flowing west- 
ward through mountain passes into the Mississippi Valley. 
For example, the upper waters of the James are near the 
streams which make up the Kanawha and flow anally into the 



THE WESTWARD BARRIER 



19 



Ohio. By following the course of other rivers, explorers could 
find the sources of the Tennessee, which makes its way into the 
Ohio near the Mississippi. But all this was very difficult, be- 
cause in many places neither boats nor canoes could be used, 
and the journey must be made on foot, often through trackless 
forests or underbrush, and along steep and rocky hillsides. 

The Best Passages. — The Appalachian barrier explains 
why more than a century passed before the English settlers 
on the coast found their way, except in rare cases, to the 
valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The French who 
settled at Quebec and Montreal were much more con- 
veniently situated. If they succeeded in opening a route to 
the Great Lakes, they could reach several places from which, 
by short carries or portages, 1 they could go in canoes into 
the Mississippi. Had the Spaniards used the knowledge 
De Soto's followers carried back, they might have been still 
better off, and have entered the great valley from the south. 
The Dutch settlers on Manhattan Island and the banks of 
the Hudson were better situated than the English in New 
England and in Virginia, because from the Hudson they 
could follow up the valley of the Mohawk. But something 
besides the Appalachians kept the Dutch, as well as other 
settlers, from venturing far westward. This second obstacle 
was the Indian tribes. 

The Indian Barrier. — Columbus had seen Indians as soon 
as he discovered San Salvador. Cortes had conquered the 
Aztec Indians in Mexico. Coronado had visited the Zufii 
Indians of the southwest, and had seen others on the plains 
farther north. De Soto had fought with Indians many times 
in his struggle through the southern forests to the banks of 
the Mississippi. To meet or fight with Indians was, there- 
fore, nothing new for the settlers of America. 

How the Indians lived. — The northern Indians were more 

barbarous than the Zunis or Aztecs. They did not live in 

towns like the pueblos, or like those in Mexico. Most of 

their houses were merely rude tents of skins or bark. They 

1 Places where two bodies of water are near together. 



20 THE NEW COUNTRY AND ITS HARRIERS 

raised tobacco, corn, and a few vegetables, the women doing 
all the work. The men did little but hunt or fight neighbor- 
ing tribes. Until they obtained guns from the settlers, the 
Indians used bows and arrows. Their arrows and spear- 
heads were of flint. Their axes and their bowls also were of 
stone. They were very glad to obtain steel knives and axes 
from the settlers, for stone tools are hard to work with. 

The Territories of the Indians ; the Iroquois. — The 
Indians had many chiefs, but no government like that of 
civilized peoples. A tribe might be made up of many 





A Dwelling House of the Iroquois 

villages. Its lands had no fixed boundaries or frontiers, but 
its members knew their hunting grounds, and were ready to 
fight against any one who entered them. Sometimes tribes 
were united in a confederacy by agreements or treaties. 
Such a confederacy was the Iroquois, or " Five Nations," 
who lived in the region now included in New York, northern 
Pennsylvania, and northeastern Ohio. Had the settlers tried 
to force a way through the Mohawk Valley, the Iroquois 
would have disputed every step. 

Other Indian Tribes. — The Indians in Canada and what 
is now New England were Algonquins, enemies of the Iro- 
quois. The Indians whose lands lay just beyond the line of 
early southern settlements were the Cherokees, — related to 
the Iroquois, — and the Creeks and Choctaws, who belonged 
to another great family called the Muskogee. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE NEW COUNTRY 21 

The Struggle for the New Country. — In studying the early 
history of America we shall first see how the settlements 
were made and how the settlers lived. We shall then fol- 
low some of the more venturesome settlers as they pushed 
along the rivers and across the mountains to the newer 
lands farther west. These hardy pioneers were often 
helped by the Indians, who acted as huntsmen and guides. 
Occasionally they were forced to fight the red men, who 
feared that they would take away the hunting grounds. 
There is still another story, and this tells of rivalries among 
the settlers themselves. The Spaniards, the English, the 
Dutch, and the French meant to gain as much of the great 
prize of lands along the Atlantic shore or beyond the moun- 
tain barriers as they could. So they quarrelled with one 
another. At times also their home countries were at war, 
and these wars spread to the new country. To understand 
our early history we must remember these struggles between 
different peoples. We shall find first one then another 
gaining advantageous positions, until at last English speak- 
ing people controlled all the country north of Spanish Mexico. 

Questions 

1. What barrier held back the early explorers and settlers? What 
was the Piedmont country ? 

2. What natural break was there in the barrier? Why were the 
Dutch and the French better situated than the English for entering 
the West ? What other barrier kept back the Dutch ? 

3. How did the Indians live? Where were the Iroquois located? 
The Algonquins ? The Cherokees ? 

4. What struggles formed the early history of America ? 

Exercises 

1. Draw a map of the Appalachian barrier and of the routes across 
or around it to the Mississippi Valley. Are there similar barriers or 
river routes in your region ? 

2. Gather pictures of Indian objects, tools, houses, and the like, 
which show their manner of life. 

3. Locate on an outline map of North America the hunting grounds 
of the Indian tribes which the early settlers knew. What Indians once 
lived in, or roamed over, the region in which you live ? 



CHAPTER III 
THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA 

The Virginia Company. — Sir Walter Raleigh had spent on 
his ventures a sum almost equal to a million dollars, accord- 
ing to the present value of money, and yet he had failed, 
partly for a lack of money. Some of his fellow country- 
men thought a company could obtain more, and would 
succeed. Already an East India Company had been formed 
for trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope. On a similar 
plan a stock company or corporation was formed in 1606. 
Queen Elizabeth had died, and James I was on the throne. 
From him the company obtained the right to settle in America 
between the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth parallels of lati- 
tude. The region was still called Virginia, as Raleigh had 
named it. The company was, therefore, called the Virginia 
Company. 1 It was made up of noblemen, wealthy land- 
holders, and rich merchants. Each one who gave a sum 
equal to $300 became owner or proprietor of a share, and was, 
of course, entitled to a part of the profits coming from trade 
with the Indians or from discoveries of gold. 

" Eastward Ho ! " — Some members of the company bought 
shares in the enterprise because they thought it patriotic 
to obtain lands in America for the king. Others wanted to 
Christianize the Indians. Still others expected to increase 
their fortunes. A popular play, called Eastward Ho ! put 
on the stage in 1605, spoke of Virginia as a land where gold 
was more plentiful than copper in England. This play also 

'The company was made up 'if two groups, one of Londoners, the 
others of men from the west of England. The first group was 1 
the London Company, the second the Plymouth Company. It was 
the London Company which founded Jamestown. 



THE FIRST ENGLISH EMIGRANTS 23 

said that the natives went out on holidays to gather rubies 
and diamonds to hang on their children's coats and to stick 
in their caps. Such tales were like those which caused 
De Soto to search for the Gilded Man, and Coronado for the 
Seven Cities of Cibola. 

The Spaniards aroused. — Two years before the Virginia 
Company was formed King James had made peace with the 
king of Spain, so that the company's ships were not likely to 
be attacked on their way to America. But when the Span- 
iards heard that Englishmen were going to the New World, 
the Spanish ambassador at London declared that America 
was all a part of the Indies, which belonged to his king. 
King James listened politely, but said that there could be 
no wrong in settling on lands which the Spaniards had not 
occupied. 

The First English Emigrants. — The first emigrants 1 who 
set out for Virginia just before Christmas in 1606 were ill- 
prepared for the work before them.* About half were young 
men belonging to the gentry, or lesser nobility of England, 
who had never done a day's work. They were eager for 
gold and for adventure. Several of the emigrants were 
carpenters, bricklayers, masons, and other skilled laborers. 
The remainder were poor workmen from the farm districts, 
with a few worthless criminals and vagabonds from London. 
No women went on this first voyage. All the men were 
offered free passage to Virginia, and food, clothing, and 
shelter while in the employ of the company. When the 
company should be dissolved, the emigrants were to share 
in the profits and receive a part of the land. 

The First Voyage. — The voyage to America was then 
very different from the voyage of emigrants nowadays. The 
ships were hardly bigger than those which Columbus had 

1 The word " emigrants," rather than " immigrants," is used here and 
in the chapters which follow as long as the principal thought is move- 
ment from Europe to America. When the colonies become the United 
States, the point of view is reversed. In treating the later movements 
from Europe, therefore, the word " immigrants " will be used. 



24 



THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA 



used a hundred years before. Instead of attempting to sail 
straight across the stormy North Atlantic, the sailors fol- 
lowed the route of the Spaniards, stopping at the Canary 
Islands and at several of the West India Islands. Contrary 
winds delayed them off the English coast for two months. 
Their provisions consisted mainly of salt meat and barley or 
wheat flour. Long before their five months' voyage was 

over the barley spoiled. 
Fortunately, in the islands 
where they stopped they 
caught fish and birds for 
food. But by the time 
they landed, on May 
14, 1607, 16 of the 120 
men had died. 

Settlement of James- 
town. — All were delighted 
to escape from the close, 
filthy quarters on ship- 
board and wander about 
on the Virginia shore that 
May morning in 1607. 
Even those who did not 
know how to work were 
willing at first to help in 
felling trees and clearing 
the land for tents and a 
fort. The fort was a rough affair, made by laying trunks 
and branches of trees end to end around a half acre. Some 
hurried off to see if Chesapeake Bay was the passage to 
the Indies for which so many sailors were looking. If it 
was, the founders of the colony would be well paid for the 
time and money they had expended. Others cut out clap- 
boards to send back to England when the ships returned. 
Still others planted a small field of wheat. They made a 
garden, but the season for planting was already past, and 
the seeds did not do well. This was a great misfortune, be- 




Map of Early Virginia 
Jamestown was located about 32 miles 
from Old Point Comfort on the James River. 
The wide deep rivers which flowed into the 
Chesapeake Bay seemed more like straits 
than rivers 



JAMESTOWN 



25 



cause they had little left on their ships to eat during the 
months before another season would open. In June the 
ships sailed back to England for supplies, but it was seven 
months before they came again. 

Early Troubles at Jamestown. — Meanwhile two thirds 
of those left on shore died of hunger or disease. Jamestown 
was situated on a low tongue of land, with marshes all 
about. Soon malarial 
fever attacked the set- 
tlers. They had no 
pure water to drink, and 
were obliged to use the 
river water, which at 
high tide was salt and 
at low tide slimy. Most 
of them lived in bark or 
brush tents. The only 
buildings were a few 
rude huts, a storehouse, 
and a chapel. 

The Starving Time. 
— The arrival of the 
ships in January, 1608, 
helped for a while, be- 
cause they had fresh 

supplies on board, but they also brought more emigrants, 
which meant more mouths to feed. Several times in the next 
few years the settlement was on the verge of ruin. The 
winter of 1609 and 16 10 was long known as the Starving Time. 
After all supplies were consumed, the settlers ate their dogs 
and horses. Barely sixty men were living when spring came. 
During the first three years the company sent out more than 
300 emigrants, but at the end of that time only eighty were 
left. 

Captain John Smith. — The hero of those years of suffering 
was Captain John Smith. Every one knows the story of his 
capture by the Indians and of his rescue by Pocahontas, the 




Captain John Smith 

After a drawing in Smith's Description of 
■ New England 



26 THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA 

chieftain's daughter. There are other things better worth 
remembering about him. Soon after his return to James- 
town he was made governor. He forced the idle and lazy to 
work, making the rule that " he who would not work should 
not eat." In a short time all were busy chopping down trees, 
hewing out lumber, and gathering pitch. The settlement 
took on an air of life and energy. Smith also saved the 
settlers from starvation by opening a profitable trade with 
the Indians. When the Indians saw that the colonists were 
in distress, they tried to drive hard bargains, offering only 
small pieces of bread or a few beans for a piece of copper or 
a hatchet. Smith found that the Indians liked colored beads. 
His men also learned to make chisels and hatchets from the 
iron they discovered in Virginia. When every other way 
failed, he compelled the Indians to trade. They dared not 
refuse, for his guns were more dangerous than their bows and 
arrows. Unfortunately, in 1609 he was hurt by an explosion 
of powder, and went to England to have his wounds cared 
for. He never returned to Virginia. 

Jamestown not a Real Settlement. — In 16 10 the company 
sent over a harsh governor, who tried to make the colonists 
work better by introducing the strict discipline of an army 
post. The day's work began at six with beat of drum. 
When it closed in the afternoon, all were marched to the 
church for prayers. One reason why the men did not work 
well was that they were working for the company and not 
for themselves. Whatever they produced went to the com- 
pany's storehouse. The garden and the wheat fields be- 
longed to the company. The men were fed and clothed from 
the common stock. Life at Jamestown was more like that 
of a lumber or mining camp than of an ordinary town. 

Working for the Company. — The men who were not busy 
producing the food needed for the settlement worked to 
obtain loads for the company's ships. Lumber was about 
the only thing which could be produced at first. Once the 
Virginians thought they had found gold dust and sent part 
of a cargo of it to England. Not until the ship arrived at 



PLANTATIONS 



27 



the wharf in England was it discovered that the gold dust 
was only yellow sand. 

A Change in the Company's Plans. — In 1614 Governor 
Dale made an important change in the management of the 
settlement in order to encourage industry. He allotted to a 
few of the older colonists three acres of land apiece, expect- 
ing them to pay as rent two and one half barrels of corn an 




Ruins of the Brick Church Built at Jamestown in 1639 

The site of Jamestown was low and damp ; the high tides almost separated it 
from the mainland ; but this made it easy to defend 

acre, and to work for the company thirty days each year. 
The plan was so successful that the company stopped send- 
ing men over to work for it directly. The company also 
encouraged rich men to take large farms in Virginia and 
supply their own laborers. 

Plantations. — These new settlers may be called planters 
and their farms plantations. Their number increased, while 
the number of men working for the company decreased. The 
company was obliged to content itself with the rent of its 
land, and the trade carried on between England and Virginia. 

Indentured Servants. — The planters obtained laborers 
by offering free passage, food, clothing, and shelter to men 
willing to go to Virginia, but who had no money to pay their 



28 THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA 

expenses. These men in return agreed to become servants 
of the planters for four, five, six, or sometimes even seven 
years. They were commonly called indentured servants, 
because they gave a bond or indenture, pledging them to 
serve. When their term of service ended, they could work 
for wages. As land was plentiful they might soon be able to 
secure farms. Sometimes a poor but ambitious young man 
would choose this means of seeking his fortune in Virginia. 

The First Slaves. — The first settlers in Virginia did not 
follow the example of the Spaniards and make slaves of the 
Indians. The main reason was that it was so easy for them 
to run away and find refuge among the other Indians of the 
region. Indians were frequently hired to hunt and fish for 
the planters. In 1619 a Dutch sea-captain stopped at 
Jamestown, having on board his ship some negroes whom he 
had stolen from the Spaniards in the West Indies. He sold 
20 of them to the planters. But it was a long time before 
many negro slaves were brought into the colony. The cost 
of slaves varied from Sioo to $250, while five, six, or seven 
years' service of an indentured servant cost from $50 to $75. 

Beginnings of Family Life at Jamestown. — Up to 1619 
few women had arrived at Jamestown. The settlers did not 
wish to marry Indian women, as many of the Spanish colo- 
nists had, although John Rolfe, a prosperous planter, married 
Pocahontas. The company now concluded, in the quaint 
phrase of the time, " that a plantation can never flourish 
till families be planted and . . . wives and children fix the 
people to the soil." Accordingly the company sent ninety 
young women to Virginia. The understanding was that a 
settler desiring a wife must gain the consent of the woman 
he chose and must pay her passage, which amounted to 120 
pounds of tobacco. The plan was so successful that the 
company sent out many other young women. 

Growth of the Colony. — Life in Virginia gradually became 
more attractive. Whole families began to come from Eng- 
land of their own accord. The older settlers built larger 
houses in place of their rude huts. They sent for horses 



LIFE IN VIRGINIA 



29 



and cattle. The plantations increased in number as the new- 
comers settled along the river courses. On the James they 
spread as far as the falls where Richmond is situated. 

The English Attempts to cross the Barrier. — The great 
Appalachian barrier, which faced the English settlements, 
kept the English from reaching the Mississippi Valley. But 
they made brave efforts, lured on by the hope of finding 
an "Indian Sea." In September, 167 1, two Virginians, 
Captain Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam, after crossing 




"- .""ntniJTilwnEHr 



The Wharf at Upper Brandon 



At such wharves ships from England or the neighboring colonies could unload 
at the planter's door, and take on cargoes of tobacco or other farm products 

the rough Piedmont country and climbing the Blue Ridge, 
discovered a river flowing northwest. This was the New 
River, which lower becomes the Kanawha. They went on 
until they reached a place near the present boundary of 
Virginia and West Virginia. Two years later James Need- 
ham succeeded in crossing the Blue Ridge farther south 
and reaching the head-waters of the Tennessee. 

Why the English could wait. — It was fortunate that few 
Englishmen were tempted by such ventures. The settle- 
ments on the coast needed all who came from Europe to clear 
the fields, plant crops, build towns, and open trade with one 
another and with Europe. There would be time enough to 



30 THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA 

conquer the Mississippi Valley after a newer England had 
grown up on the Atlantic coast. 

Rivers the Roads of Virginia. — The rivers were the high- 
ways connecting one plantation with another. Roads were 
almost unknown. Each planter had a wharf, at which sea- 
going ships could unload furniture, tools, cloth, and many 
other things, taking the planter's crop in exchange. In such 
a country market-towns were not needed and were very 
scarce. Families used the river highways in visiting or 
going to church, being rowed by their servants or slaves. 

Finding Wealth. — The officers of the company expected 
to find the main profits of the enterprise in gold mines, just 
as the Spaniards had been made rich by the mines of Mexico 
and Peru. When their explorers discovered no mines, they 
tried to make a profit by sending pitch, tar, and other naval 
supplies to England. The settlers in Virginia soon found 
something profitable to grow. This was tobacco. 

Raising Tobacco. — At first the tobacco which the Indians 
raised seemed too bitter, but John Rolfe learned how to cure 
it in such a manner that it found a ready sale in the London 
market. King James hated tobacco and tried to keep his 
subjects from using it. The governor of Virginia also thought 
that raising tobacco would take time from more useful labor 
and made a rule that no farmer should plant tobacco until 
he had planted two acres of corn. Still, tobacco fields spread 
in spite of the law. At Jamestown, in the spring of 1617, 
the market-place and even the borders of the streets were set 
with the plants. This is not surprising, for a single pound 
sometimes brought in London as much as $12 in present 
money. The price fell as more was raised, but tobacco con- 
tinued to be the chief product on which the planters depended 
for profit. 

The dried leaves were so convenient to handle that they 
became the money of the day, bound together in pound 
or hundred-pound packages. The price of everything was 
reckoned in pounds of tobacco. The salaries of public officers 
and of clergymen, as well as all debts, were also paid with it. 



THE FIRST VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY 



31 



The First Virginia Assembly. — The officers of the Virginia 
Company had already decided to rent the land and sell it 
to planters, instead of managing it themselves. Soon they 
shared the government of the colony with the settlers. They 
hoped in this way to give the colonists a deeper interest in 
the welfare of the settlements. They were at the same time 
following closely in the footsteps of their ancestors. Far 
back in the Middle Ages the people of England had expected 
the king to ask the advice of representatives of the towns 




How the Colonists built their New Homes 

before he spent money which the towns raised. Why should 
the Englishmen who managed the affairs of the company be 
less just to their settlers than the king was obliged to be to 
them? Accordingly the company, in 1619, invited the chief 
settlements each to choose two delegates to form an assembly 
or little " parliament." This assembly assisted the governor 
of the colony and his council. At first it numbered 22 mem- 
bers, and met in the wooden church at Jamestown. It may 
appear like a small and unimportant body, but the Virginia 
Assembly of 16 19 was the forerunner of every state legisla- 
ture of the present day. 



32 



THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA 



The English Laws obeyed in Virginia. — The custom of gov- 
erning themselves by representatives was not the only custom 
that the settlers brought over from England. The year after 
the meeting of the first Virginia Assembly, the company de- 
cided to select from the English laws those rules which might 
- a pply to ways of living in 

n r c f* D inTTAM 1,1C colon >- A liulc later > 
Utb^KlrllUlN the judges in Virginia 

of J\(e\)> England: 
OR 



THE OBSERVATIONS, AND 

difcouerieSjof Captain IohnSmith(Adm\ra\l 

of that Country) in the North of Amenc*,m the year 

of out Lord 16 1 4 : with theftuceffe of fixe Ships, 

that went the nextyeare 1 6 1 J ; indthe 

acadcniibcfell himamongthe 

French men ofwtrre: 

With the proofe of the prcfent benefit this 

CountreyarToordj: whitherthisprfffnt/eare, 

l6l(t,tighi voluntary Ship aregont 

to mmltt further lry*ll. 



BBMm 



US 



At LONDON 

Printed by Humfrey Lownes, for Robert Clerie; and 

are to be fould at his houfe called the Lodge, 

i/i Chancery lane, ouer againft Lin- 

CoJneslnne. 1616. 

Reduced Facsimile of the Title- 
Page of a Book that John Smith 
wrote 



were required to promise 
to "do justice as near as 
may be " to the way jus- 
tice was done in England. 
Trial by jury was one 
way which was as old as 
parliament. 

Schools and Books. — 
Many of the early set- 
tlers were educated men 
and were anxious to have 
their children educated. 
They were at first obliged 
to engage private teach- 
ers or send their sons to 
English schools. They 
brought books with them 
from England. Some of 
them enjoyed reading 
books written by the 
Greeks and Romans. 



The Englishman in Vir- 
ginia was much like the Englishman who remained in Eng- 
land. He did his farming differently, and that was about all. 
Number of Virginians. — Nearly 7,000 settlers had come 
at one time or another since 1607, but most of them had 
perished of hardships and disease. The Indians surprised 
the settlers in 1622 and killed 347. In 1624 Virginia had a 
population of 1,232 colonists, including 23 negro slaves. 



SCHOOLS AND BOOKS 



33 



End of the Virginia Company. — King James did not long 
permit the Virginia Company to manage the colony. In 
1624 he took away its privileges, expecting to control the 
colony more directly. Neither he nor his successors inter- 
fered much with it. He appointed the governor, but the 
settlers usually managed their own affairs. 

Questions 

1 . Who were the first emigrants to Virginia ? Why did they go out 
to settle under a trading company ? What route did their ship follow ? 

2. What work did the early settlers do? Why did they suffer so 
much? What did Captain John Smith do for them? 

3. In what ways was life at Jamestown more like a lumber camp or 
a mining camp than an ordinary town? What change in the com- 
pany's plans did Governor Dale introduce? 

4. What was an indentured servant? Did they cost more or less 
than slaves? Which worked for the planters the longer — slaves or 
servants ? 

5. What did the company do in order to introduce family life more 
fully into its colony ? 

6. What Englishmen crossed the great barrier into the West? 
By what route? Why was it better for the English to remain longer 
east of the barrier ? 

7. What use did the settlers make of rivers in Virginia? What 
profitable crop did they find ? 

8. Why did the Virginia Company share the government with the 
colonists? How large was the colony in 1624? Why had the colony 
grown slowly? 

9. Why did King James deprive the Virginia Company of its priv- 
ileges ? Did he carry out his plan f 

Exercises 

1 . Learn about some one of the many state legislatures in the United 
States — where it holds its sessions, how many members it has, what 
it does — and then compare it with the first Virginia Assembly. 

2. Find the Old- World customs which the Virginians followed in 
their new country. 

3. Are there any families in your neighborhood whose ancestors came 
from Virginia? 

Important Dates: 
1607. The founding of Jamestown by the Virginia Company. 
1619. The first Virginia Assembly at Jamestown. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE EXILES FOR CONSCIENCE 1 SAKE AT PLYMOUTH 

The Separatists. — Virginia had its origin in the plans of 
a trading company, and was in the main a business venture. 
Quite different was the beginning of Plymouth colony. 
Queen Elizabeth and her successor, King James, like most 
people of their time in England and Europe, thought that 
everybody ought to attend the religious services ordered by 
law. Some of their subjects, however, believed that they had 
a right to form congregations and manage their religious 
affairs undisturbed by the government. This led to their 
being called " Independents " or " Separatists." They dis- 
liked, besides, the manner of conducting the ordinary serv- 
ices of the English Church. When they tried to organize 
small independent churches, where they could worship in 
their own way, royal officials hunted them out and punished 
them by fines and imprisonment. If after three months' 
imprisonment they refused to obey, they could be expelled 
from the kingdom and their property seized. 

Exiles in Holland. — In 1607 and 1608 rather than run the 
risk of losing all their property, as well as of being sent into 
exile, many Separatists, especially from the farming region 
near Lincoln and York, crossed the North Sea to the Dutch 
cities of Amsterdam and Leyden. They could worship as 
they chose in Holland, but they found that only by the sever- 
est toil, including the labor of their children, could they 
make a living. They soon realized that their children were 
likely to forget the English language and English customs, 
marry into Dutch families, and perhaps enter the Dutch 
army and navy. Some of the older people returned to 
England, preferring to risk imprisonment rather than cease 

34 



THE PLAN TO EMIGRATE 



35 



being English. One congregation living at Leyden, of which 
John Robinson was the pastor, decided to go to America. 
They expected to find land and a chance to worship as they 
believed. They were, however, too poor to go so far with- 
out help. Accordingly they sent two of their number to 
London to secure money to carry out their plan. 

The Plan to emigrate to America. — Some London mer- 
chants were persuaded to advance £1,200, equivalent to 
nearly $30,000 in money to-day, with which to hire ships and 
sailors and buy supplies. The understanding was that each 
subscriber of £10 was to own a share. Each of the Pilgrims, 




Manor House at Scrooby, England 
William Brewster's residence 



as the members of this emigrant band were called, was also 
to receive a share. Both people and money were needed 
to found a colony. All that the colonists could gain during 
the first seven years by labor or by trade with the Indians, 
except what was needed for their daily support, was to 
belong to the common stock. When the seven years were 
up, this stock was to be divided with the London merchants 
who had aided them. 

The Pilgrims. — Only a part of the Pilgrim congregation 
left Leyden in the first expedition. There was neither room 
on the ship nor money enough for all. Robinson remained 
in Leyden with the others, who needed him more. William 



36 



THE PILGRIMS AND PLYMOUTH 



Brewster, a printer and writer, and next to Robinson the 
leading man of the congregation, joined the party of emi- 
grants and became their pastor. Among them was William 
Bradford, a born leader of men, and later the historian of 
the colony. Miles Standish, a soldier in Holland during the 
recent war with Spain, also joined the Pilgrims. Two others 
wen 1 John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, about whom the poet 
Longfellow has told a pretty story. 




Departure of the Pilgrims from Delft Haven 

From a famous old Dutch painting 

Their Voyage. — The Pilgrims left Holland in the summer 
of 1620. After many delays in England, a company of 102 
sailed from Plymouth, September 6, in the ship Mayflower. 
For nine weeks the little company was tossed about on the 
rough seas of the North Atlantic, living in narrow, unwhole- 
some quarters, as the first emigrants to Virginia had done 
thirteen years before. 

Choosing a Place for Settlement. — The Pilgrims had 
planned to settle somewhere in the neighborhood of the 
Hudson or the Delaware River, in what was then regarded 
as the northern part of Virginia. But after the Mayflower 
passed Cape Cod it came upon dangerous shoals. The 



THE "MAYFLOWER" COMPACT 



37 



stormy season had set in, and winter was fast coming on. 
The plan to go farther was, therefore, abandoned, and a 
site for a settlement was sought nearer at* hand. 

The "Mayflower" Compact. — Steps were also taken to 
ensure orderly government in the colony after landing. 
The men held a meeting in the cabin of the Mayflower, 




Captain John Smith's Map of New England 



chose one of their number, John Carver, to be their gov- 
ernor, and signed a solemn compact or agreement to submit 
to the laws which should be made by the majority. 

Beginnings of Plymouth. — A party of explorers in a boat 
left the ship at Cape Cod and explored the coast. On Mon- 
day, December 21, 1620, they landed at a place which Captain 
John Smith had already seen. He had given the name 
New England to the region from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod, 
and the name Plymouth to the well-sheltered harbor into 



THE PILCRIMS AND PLYMOUTH 



which the Pilgrims now sailed. 1 This also happened to be 
the name of the last English port which they had seen. 
They found a protected harbor, running brooks, and cleared 
land at Plymouth, and decided to locate there. Several 
days later the Mayflower came to anchor in the harbor and 
the men began building the first houses. Lots were given 
to each family in proportion to the number of members. 
The women and children and the sick remained for weeks 

aboard the ship. Before the first 
winter was over several small 
houses had been built, with the 
sides of rudely squared logs and 
the roofs thatched with dry 
swamp grass. One served as a 
storehouse for tools and provi- 
sions. Into the others the fami- 
lies moved as soon as they were 
able. 

The First Winter. — Prolonged 
ship life and exposure in a strange 
climate made havoc in the Pil- 
grim colony. When the first 
warm weather of the spring came 
barely half the colonists were living. Governor Carver died 
in April, 162 1. Eighteen married women had come over in 
the Mayflower; only four of them still lived. The graves of 
the dead were carefully covered and planted with corn in 
the spring in order to conceal from the Indians the ravages 
of disease in the little colony. 

1 In 1614 Captain John Smith, having recovered from his accident 
in Virginia, made a voyage of exploration along the American coast 
from Maine to Cape Cod. He wrote- ;i description of what he called 
New England, and also drew a map of the region. He presented the 
map to Prince Charles, then a boy of fifteen, who afterward became 
King Charles I. Charles and Smith changed about 30 barbarous 
Indian names to familiar English and Scotch names, mostly places in 
which the young prince was interested. Accomackc was changed to 
Plymouth. 




Plymouth Harbor 



THE COLONISTS AND THE INDIANS 



39 



Fear of the Indians. — The Pilgrims were fortunately free 
from trouble with the Indians. A recent pestilence had 
carried off most of those of the neighborhood, and left their 
cleared corn fields ready for the settlers to plant. The 
settlers were, however, always on their guard against attack. 
Whether in the field or wood, at church or at town meeting, 
each had his gun by his side. Their leader in arms was 
Captain Miles Standish, who, like Captain John Smith, 
was a brave and skilful soldier. 

Friendly Indians. — The colonists were surprised on a fair 
morning toward the end of March, while many were still 




A View of Plymouth in 1622 



Copyright. 1891, by A. S. Burbank 



sick, at the sudden appearance of a solitary Indian in their 
village. He advanced boldly, and gave them the good old 
English greeting of " Welcome ! " He proved to be a chief 
from the far-off Maine coast who was visiting Indians nearby. 
His name was Samoset. He had learned English from the 
fishing vessels that annually visited his region. A few days 
afterward Samoset reappeared, bringing an Indian named 
Squanto, the only survivor of the tribe that had formerly 
inhabited the region around Plymouth. Squanto had once 
been captured and carried to England and had learned 
English. Samoset and Squanto brought a chieftain named 
Massasoit to visit the white men. In this way the Indians of 



40 



THE PILGRIMS AND PLYMOUTH 





the neighborhood became friendly with the settlers. Squanto 
iit them how to hunt, and where to get fish, and helped 
them to procure corn and furs from the Indians. He sb 
them how to plant corn, placing a fish in each hole in order 
to fertilize the poor soil. 

A New Kind of Money. — In trading with the Indians the 
colonists learned to use, in place of money, strings of beads 
made from clam-shells. The shells were first broken into 
small pieces, then chipped and ground into a round form. A 
hole was bored through the center, and finally the polished 

A Piece of Wampum 

beads were strung together on fibers of hemp or on sinews 
of deer. Six white beads, or three purple beads, were 
counted as worth a penny. 

The First Thanksgiving Day. — The settlers at first had no 
horses or oxen or even ] »1< >\vs, but many of them were farmers 
and they were soon able to raise com, wheat, rye, barley, and 
peas enough for their wants. When their first harvest was 
gathered, they decided to set apart a few days for rest and 
thanksgiving. Massasoit and his tribe were asked to join 
them in the season of festivity. Ninety Indians came to 
Plymouth. These native guests remained three days. They 
contributed five deer as their share. The Indians ami 
the white men with wild, frolicsome games, and the settlers 
in turn entertained them with military tactics and evolutions. 
Each day was opened with a religious service. This was the 
first Thanksgiving in New England. 

End of the Partnership. — Emigrants joined the Pilgrims 
during the following years, so that the colony increased in 
numbers. The newcomers were in part from John Robin- 
son's church in Leyden, and in pari directly from England. 
In 1624 some cattle were brought into the settlement. In 
one way, however, the colony did not seem successful. The 



GROWTH OF THE COLONY 41 

colonists could find little except lumber or beaver skins to 
send to their partners in London. In 1627 they purchased 
the shares held there, agreeing to pay the London merchants 
in nine annual instalments. The Pilgrims managed to keep 
their agreement by establishing posts on the Kennebec River, 
Penobscot Bay, and the Connecticut River, from which they 
carried on a trade in furs with the more distant Indians. 

Dividing the Land. — The system of joint labor on common 
fields which had prevailed during the early years came to an 
end at about the same time. The better lands near Plymouth 
were divided by lot among the settlers in twenty-acre por- 
tions. The poorer land and the meadows at some distance 
away were left in common for a few years longer. The 
domestic animals, also owned in common, were distributed. 
There was not much to divide. Every thirteen persons 
secured a cow and two goats in the division. 

Growth of Plymouth. — The people who came later took 
up lands lying along the coast north and south of Plymouth 
and sometimes at a considerable distance inland. For a 
time such frontier settlers took part in the town meetings at 
Plymouth and attended church there, but within a few years 
separate towns were organized and new churches built. An 
emigrant ship bound for Virginia was driven ashore at 
Plymouth. A few who " carried themselves very orderly " 
were allowed to remain, while the others, being " untoward 
people," were compelled to go on to Virginia. By 1643 there 
were ten towns in Plymouth colony, and a total population 
of 3,000. The town of Plymouth remained the center of 
the colony, the residence of the governor, and the place where 
the colonial assembly of delegates from the other towns held 
its sessions. 

Questions 

1. What did the Separatists or Independents in England want to 
do? How were they treated when they tried to organize their own 
churches ? Where did some of them go ? Why did they soon grow dis- 
contented in the new location ? Where did they decide to go ? 

2. Why were the Separatists who came to America called Pilgrims? 



42 



THE PILGRIMS AND PLYMOUTH 



How did they obtain money to pay their passage and start the settle- 
ment ? Who were the leaders ? Did all start from Holland ? 

3. Where had the Pilgrims planned to settle? Where did they de- 
cide to settle ? Why did they choose Plymouth ? 

4. What did the Pilgrims do the first winter r How many lived till 
spring? Why had they met with such hardships and losses? In 
what ways did the Indians aid them ? 

5. What is the origin of Thanksgiving Day ? 

6. How did the Pilgrims finally arrange terms with their London 
partners ? Was this the original plan ? 

7. What progress had the colony made by 1643? 

Exercises 

1 . How do the terms that the Pilgrims made with their partners in 
London differ from those that the Virginians made with the Virginia 
Company ? 

2. Learn all you can about Thanksgiving customs. Compart' the 
mode of keeping the day now with the first Thanksgiving Day. 
Important Date : 

1620. The Pilgrims begin a colony at Plymouth. 




In ic " Mayflower" 

From the model in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. The Mayflower 

was go feet lon>,'. 20 feet wide, and with a depth of hold of 14 feet 



CHAPTER V 
THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 

The Puritans or Nonconformists. — Many people in Eng- 
land sympathized with the Pilgrims in the desire that the 
church be " purified " of most of its ceremonies. For this 
reason they were called Puritans. They did not separate 
from the church, but often refused to worship as the law 
required. In other words, they would not " conform," and 
were also called " Nonconformists." This made King James 
very angry, and he threatened to drive them out of the 
kingdom if they did not conform. 

King and Parliament. — The Puritans, and many other 
Englishmen, did not approve of the manner in which King 
James spent the royal income. Part of the money came 
from taxes or dues which the king had no right to collect 
without asking parliament. When his requests were laid 
before it, some members were sure to complain of what he 
was doing. He therefore seldom called parliament together. 
King James died before the quarrel became serious. 

Charles I tries to rule without Parliament. — Charles I, 
who became king in 1625, quarrelled with parliament more 
violently than his father. When he needed money, he also 
ordered the sheriffs to collect sums, which he called " loans," 
from all persons rich enough to pay. If they refused to 
pay, the royal officers threw them into prison. In 1628 
parliament asked Charles to sign the " Petition of Right," 
which was really a promise not to do any of these things 
again. When he did not keep his promise, the quarrel grew 
fiercer than ever, and Charles dismissed parliament, resolving 
not to call it together again. 

43 



44 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 



Puritans begin to think of Emigration. — Charles also saw 
to it that the laws about worship were earried out, whether 
the people liked the laws or not. The Puritans, accordingly, 
had a double reason to be discontented with the way matters 
were going in England. Many began to think of imitating 
the Pilgrims and emigrating to America. Several, of whom 
John Endicott was the leader, had already obtained lands 

north of the Plymouth settle- 
ment, extending as far as the 
present boundary of New Hamp- 
shire. They had also formed 
the Massachusetts Bay Com- 
pany, hoping to make profits 
from the fisheries and fur trade 
as well as to settle their lands. 
The Massachusetts Bay Com- 
pany. — In 1629, after Charles 
had angrily dismissed parlia- 
ment, a large number of influ- 
ential Puritans resolved to 
emigrate to the lands of the 
Massachusetts Bay Company. 
Among them were some of the 
principal men in the company. 
The other members agreed that those who went should con- 
trol the company's affairs. This was better than trying to 
manage the settlement from England, three thousand miles 
away, as had been done at first in the case of Jamestown. 
John Winthrop was chosen governor. 

The First Emigration. — The emigration of Puritans be- 
gan in the spring of 1630. Before the year was over about 
two thousand crossed to the Massachusetts shore. Many 
were " country gentlemen," well-to-do landowners, like 
Winthrop, who could pay their own expenses and subscribe 
something toward the expenses of the enterprise. 

Beginnings of Boston. — The settlers scattered in small 
groups along the shore of Massachusetts Bay from Salem 




John Winthrop 

After the original in the Massa- 
chusetts Senate Chamber 



-ti- ^/Gloucester 

.**2V <Sarem 

Co„ror<f .'"^no^on Massachusetts 
Watertown\^<-C <<lluU 

' ^--~V Bay 

DurouryoN «fWw... 




BOSTON SETTLED 45 

southward. Winthrop chose for his home land where Boston 
now stands. On one side was an arm of the bay, on the other 
the Charles River. Excellent springs furnished pure water. 
Others settled near Winthrop on trails worn by deer or In- 
dians along the wood-covered hills. Boston soon became 
the chief town of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Within 
a year the colonists had begun villages near Salem and Bos- 
ton, among them Lynn, Charlestown, and Newtowne, after- 
wards called Cambridge. The region seemed beautiful to the 
newcomers. Winthrop wrote 
to his wife, who did not leave 
England with the first group, 
" We are here in a paradise. 
Though we have not beef and 
mutton, yet (God be praised) 
we want them not ; our In- 
dian corn answers for all. 
Yet here is fowl and fish in 
great plenty." 

Troubles come. — The first houses were log huts, the roofs 
thatched with long grasses, and the chimneys made of sticks 
coated with mud. Unfortunately the colonists arrived too 
late to gain a harvest the first season. Their supplies ran low, 
and they were obliged to live on clams, mussels, and fish, 
which were plentiful in the bay. It looked as if they would 
have a starving time, like the Jamestown settlers, and Gover- 
nor Winthrop appointed February 22, 1631, as a fast day. 
But the vessel they had sent to England for supplies arrived 
in time to turn the fast into a festival of thanksgiving. 

The First Winter. — The settlers did not escape other 
hardships common to every new country. Before the first 
winter had even begun 200 died. The others did not falter. 
Only a few gave up the struggle and returned to England. 
Their places were soon filled, for King Charles's tyrannical 
acts drove hundreds to emigrate to Massachusetts. Within 
ten years the number reached fully 20,000. This is called 
the " Great Emigration." 



Country about Massachusetts 
Bay 



*<5 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 



The Puritans became " Congregationalists." — The Puri- 
tans who settled in Massachusetts were as sure they were 
right as those in authority in England were that the Church 
there was right. Not long after the Puritans landed they 
began to manage their religious affairs much like the Pilgrims. 
They did not, however, become Separatists in the. sense that 

they thought the gov- 
ernment should not med- 
dle in religious matters. 
They only separated 
from the English Church. 
But they believed firmly 
that the settlers should 
unite in the same church 
in Massachusetts. Ques- 
tions which in England 
would be decided by the 
bishops or other clergy 
were decided in New 
England by the meeting 
or congregation in each 
town. For this reason 
the people were called 
"Congregationalists." 
They expected every one 
who wished to remain in 
their towns to attend the services which their congregations 
ordered. A person who was absent any Sunday without ex- 
cuse was fined. 

Roger Williams. — In 163 1 Roger Williams, a young 
\Y( lsh clergyman, who had been graduated at the University 
of Cambridge, England, came to Massachusetts Bay. He 
had an unusually active mind and often reached conclusions 
which startled other men in the settlements, especially the 
officers of the Massachusetts Bay Company. For example, 
he declared that the king had no right to grant lands in 
America, because these lands belonged to the Indians and 




Puritan Costumes 



RHODE ISLAND 



47 



should be bought from them. In speaking about the subject 
he treated the names of both King Charles and King James 
with scant respect. This alarmed the officers of the com- 
pany, who feared that the king might be offended and might 
take away their charter. 

Williams an Exile from Massachusetts. — Williams was 
really a Separatist and tried for a time to live at Plymouth. 
Finally he became pastor of the 
church at Salem. There he taught 
that the government had no right 
to interfere in religion and that no 
one should be forced to attend 
church. In 1635 the officers of the 
Massachusetts Bay colony at Bos- 
ton decided to send him back to 
England, but they first gave him 
ample time to settle his affairs at 
Salem. Before the day appointed 
for his departure, he fled through 
the woods, taking refuge among 
the Indians near the head of Narra- 
gansett Bay. He had often visited 
the Indians, could speak their lan- 
guage, and was looked upon by 
them as a friend. 

Beginnings of Rhode Island. — 
The Indians gave him a hearty 
welcome, took him into their wig- 
wams, and shared their scanty sup- 
plies of food with him. In the spring a few followers from 
Salem joined him, and together they marked out the site 
for a new settlement beyond the territories of either Massa- 
chusetts Bay or Plymouth. They called it Providence, 
believing that a good Providence had guided them to so 
excellent a location. Roger Williams paid the Indians 
$150 for the land, which seemed to the Indians a great 
sum. Other exiles from Massachusetts founded three more 




Roger Williams 

After the statue at Providence 



48 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 

towns, including Newport, in Rhode Island on Narragansett 
Bay. In 1643 Williams went to England and obtained 
for these towns the right to rule themselves. This guarded 
against the danger that the Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay- 
governments would attempt to rule them. Such were the 
beginnings of Rhode Island. 

The First Emigrants from Massachusetts. — The year 
Williams was expelled from Massachusetts, a company of 
one hundred men, women, and children, under the leader- 
ship of Thomas Hooker, pastor of the church at Newtowne, 
left the colony for the Connecticut River valley. Why they 
went is uncertain. The other Massachusetts people were 
sorry to sec them go. The main reason, probably, was 
the reports which they heard of the fertility of the lands 
in the valley of the Connecticut. They had no difficulty 
in selling their lands in Newtowne to newcomers from 
England. 

Founding of Connecticut. — Hooker and his companions 
started on their journey early in June, 1636. Each carried 
his pack, arms, and the tools which he needed. They drove 
with them a herd of cattle. Their route lay through the 
unbroken wilderness, with only a compass to guide them. 
They camped in the open fields. Finally they reached the 
broad valley where Hartford now stands. Other groups 
founded Windsor and Wethersfield, and, farther up the Con- 
necticut River, Springfield. Springfield remained a part of 
the Massachusetts Bay colony, while the towns farther 
south were united in a separate colony called Connecticut , 
from the river which flowed past them. Within two years 
800 people had moved to the Connecticut Valley. A sep- 
arate colony was founded at New Haven by a group, mainly 
from London, under the leadership of Theophilus Eaton and 
John Davenport. 

New Hampshire. — While these larger settlements were 
being made, others were begun in New Hampshire at Dover, 
Portsmouth, and Exeter. The Massachusetts Bay Com- 
pany ruled these for a time, but aftenvards they were com- 



LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 



49 



bined by order of the English king into the province of New 
Hampshire. 
The New Englanders govern themselves. — The New 

England colonists, like the Virginians, had already learned 
how to govern themselves. They brought with them many 
useful laws and customs. In the Massachusetts Bay settle- 
ments they also took rules from the Bible and treated them 
as laws. The people 
of New Haven went 
further, pledging one 
another to live ac- 
cording to the laws 
set forth in the Old 
Testament. At first 
they did not allow 
trial by jury because 
they found no men- 
tion of it in the Bible. 
If new laws were 
needed, these were 
talked about and de- 
cided upon in assem- 
blies representing the 
citizens. There, were 

also meetings of all the citizens of each town to consider 
its special business. 

Who were Voters in Massachusetts. — According to the 
charter of the company which founded the colony, the mem- 
bers or freemen of the company were to manage its affairs. 
By the end of the first year there were 2000 persons in the 
colony, but only 12 freemen or members. The other men 
did not like to be ruled by a few, and soon 109 asked to be 
admitted as freemen. Fearing that they would leave the 
settlements if their request was not granted, the leaders con- 
cluded to admit them, but decided at the same time that only 
church members could become freemen. Consequently in 
Massachusetts for many years it was necessary to be a church 




The Original Town House of Boston, 
about 1658 



50 THE BEGINNINGS OP NEW ENGLAND 

member in order to vote. This was just as much a union of 
church and state as existed in England, except that the church 
differed from the one ordered by the English law, and the 
state was really a little republic and not a kingdom. 

A General Assembly. — After a while there were so many 
freemen in Massachusetts that they could not attend a gen- 
eral meeting of the colony. Besides, some lived too far away. 
They therefore used the plan of representation which their 
English forefathers had invented long before, and which the 
Virginians began to use in 1619. Within a few years they 
also began to vote by ballot for the governor and for the rep- 
resentatives or deputies to the assembly or " General Court." 

The New England Confederation. — Each of these colo- 
nies — Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New 
Haven — managed its affairs separately. Fear of the In- 
dians and of the Dutch settlers in the Hudson Valley, led 
in 1643 to a union for common defense. They called their 
league " The United Colonies of New England." Eight 
commissioners, two from each colony, wen- given charge of 
matters of common interest, such as war with Indian tribes. 
The Rhode Islanders wished to join the league, but the other 
colonies would not admit them. Brewster of Plymouth said, 
" Concerning the Rhode Islanders, we have no conversation 
with them further than necessity or humanity may require." 

The league lasted forty years. The only serious Indian 
war which it managed took place in 1675 and 1676. King 
Philip was chief of one of the tribes, and so the struggle was 
called King Philip's War. The Indians fell upon a dozen 
frontier villages, burning the houses and killing the inhab- 
itants. As soon as the soldiers of the league were assembled, 
the savages were defeated. The captives were sold as slaves. 
King Philip was killed, and his followers were scattered. 
A short time after the league came to an end Plymouth 
colony was united with Massachusetts Bay. New Haven 
had been joined with Connecticut in 1664. 

Education in Massachusetts. Several of the leading men 
in the Massachusetts Bay colony had been educated in the 



EDUCATION IN NEW ENGLAND 



SI 



English universities, especially at Cambridge. They ex- 
pected their pastors to explain the Bible to the people, and 
thought that they could not discover the true meaning unless 
they could read it in the language in which it was written — 
the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in 
Greek. Besides, like many others in England and Europe, 
these Massachusetts leaders wished educated men to read 







New England in the Seventeenth Century 

Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. Brewster of 
Plymouth had a library of about 400 books, 62 of which were 
in Latin. Bradford could read not only Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin, but also French and Dutch. It was not surprising 
therefore, that among the first things the colonists cared 
for were schools and a college. In 1647 they decided that 
every town with 50 families should support a teacher. If a 
town had 100 families, it should provide for what would now 
be called a high school. The Massachusetts assembly gave 



5- 1 



Till: BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 



1,000 acres of land t<> each of the chief towns for the support 
of these schools. 

Harvard College founded. — Six years after John Win- 
throp and his companions landed on the shores of Massa- 
chusetts, the General Court voted to use part of the money 
which it collected from the settlers to found a college at New- 
townc. John Harvard, one of the clergymen of the colony, 
dying two years later, left all his hooks and half his property 
to the college. The college was named for him, and the name 
of the town was changed to Cambridge in memory of the 




The i >ldesi Bi □ dings oi Harvard College 

After an early picture in the possession of the Massachusetts I Bstorical Society 

older university town of England. Families in Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut were asked to give a quarter of a 
bushel of corn every year for the college. 

Education at New Haven. — The founders of New Haven 
also planned for a college, hut at first they could spare no 
money. They had brought a teacher with them, so that a 
school was begun at once. Finally one of their number, 
Edward Hopkins, who had returned to England, bequeathed 
some money to the colony for the college. The best they 
could do even then was to open what was called the Hopkins 
Grammar School, in which Latin and Creek as well as read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic were taught. 



AFFAIRS IN EUROPE 



53 



Parliament and King Charles. — The " Great Emigra- 
tion " to Massachusetts came to an end in 1641. For nearly 
twenty years after that time the Puritans had the upper hand 
in England and felt little desire to emigrate to America. 
They gained the advantage in this way. King Charles 
attempted to force the Scotch to worship in the manner 
ordered in England. The Scotch rose 
in rebellion, and Charles was obliged 
to call parliament together to obtain 
money to pay his soldiers. The mem- 
bers, instead of voting the money, 
complained of their grievances. He 
dismissed this " Short " Parliament, 
but soon called another which refused 
to be treated in the same way. It was 
nicknamed the " Long " Parliament, 
because it lasted almost twenty years. 

Civil War in England. — In 1642 
Charles and parliament quarrelled so 
violently that both raised armies and 
began a civil war. The members of 
the king's party were called Cavaliers, 
because many of them were nobles or 
' ' country gentlemen . ' ' The Puritans 
were nicknamed " Roundheads," be- 
cause some of them cropped their hair who later returned t0 En s land 

., 1 to aid the Puritans there in 

close. The king was defeated and the civil War From Mac . 
captured, and the government fell Monnies' statue of him in the 

into the hands of the victorious Boston Public Library 
Puritan army under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. 
When the king stirred up civil war again, he was tried, con- 
demned, and executed. 

The Commonwealth. — Oliver Cromwell now became real 
ruler of England. The government was called a Common- 
wealth and lasted until two years after Cromwell's death in 
1658, when Charles II, son of the dead king, was called from 
exile to the throne. 




Sir Harry Vane 

One of the Puritan emi- 
grants to New England, early 
Governor of Massachusetts, 



54 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 

Questions 

i. Who had formed I achusetts Bay Company? What 

was the company planning to do? Why did the Puritans wish to 
England? 

2. What arrangement did the members of the Massachusetts Bay 
Company make for those who went to America? 

3. Who was the first, governor of the Massachusetts settlement ? 
Where did the Puritans make the first settlements? 

4. Why did the settlers escape starving times like those in Virginia ? 
Did they escape the other hardships of a new country? 

5. How did the Puritans in Massachusetts come to think religious 
affairs should be managed? What name did they receive? Why this 
name? How did they differ from the Pilgrims in their ideas of church 
government ? 

6. What did Roger Williams teach? Why did these teachings 
alarm the Puritans in Massachusetts? Where did he and other exiles 
start a colony? What rights did they secure from England? 

7. Where did Thomas Hooker and his congregation first settle? 
Why did they leave Massachusetts ? Where did they form a new col- 
ony? What other settlements were made near the Connecticut towns ? 

8. Where did the New England colonists get their laws and 
customs? Why did the people of New Haven oppose trial by jury? 
How were new laws made ? 

9. Why did the Massachusetts Bay Company permit men who were 
not freemen or members to vote? Whom did they allow to become 
voters ? 

10. Why was a New England Confederation formed? What 
colonies composed it? What became of Plymouth and New Haven 
colonies? What useful work for New England did the Confederation 
accomplish ? 

11. Why were the Puritans of New England especially interested in 
education? What rule about schools did Massachusetts lay down for 
towns? Tell the story of the founding of Harvard College and the 
Hopkins Grammar School. 

12. Why did the Puritan or "Gnat Emigration" come to an end 
about 1 64 1 ? 

Exercises 

1. Find out what the constitution of your state and of the United 
States says about religion. 1 'id any of the Puritan leaders hold the 
views which governments today maintain on this subject? 

2. Find on tlie map, page 51, 'lie location of the early settlements in 
New England, and till why each was made and from where the set 1 In 
came. 




Parts of North America Occupied or Explored about 1650 

55 



CHAPTER VI 
MARYLAND, A REFUGE FOR ENGLISH CATHOLICS 

Roman Catholics in England. — The English Roman Cath- 
olics were treated even more harshly than either the Sepa- 
ratists or the Puritans. Not only were they forced to pay 
heavy fines, but any priest who celebrated mass was threat- 
ened with death. Nevertheless, influential Catholics were 
befriended by both James I and Charles I. Charles mar- 
ried a Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, daughter of the 
famous Henry of Navarre, the first Bourbon king of France. 

Lord Baltimore. — One of the influential Catholics whom 
King Charles chose to favor was Sir George Calvert, usually 
known by his title of Lord Baltimore. To him the king 
in 1632 gave 12,000 square miles of land on both sides of 
Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore was to pay the king one-fifth of 
the gold and silver which he mined, and was to send him 
every year two Indian arrows in proof of 1< >yalty. The region 
was named " Mary Land " in honor of the queen. 

Maryland. — Lord Baltimore- expected to make Maryland 
a great family estate, but he also wished to use it as a refuge 
for persecuted Catholics. Although he died before carrying 
out his plan, his son Cecil, the second Lord Baltimore, put 
it into effect. He equipped an expedition at an expense of 
£40,000, equal to a million dollars now, placing it under the 
leadership of his younger brother Leonard. The first party 
of emigrants was made up of aboul jo country gentlemen, 
most of them Catholics, and about 200 artisans and laborers, 
chiefly Protestants. Two Jesuit priests joined the expedition 
as it passed the Isle of Wight. 

The First Settlement. — The ships were three months on 
the voyage, as they followed the older route through the 

56 



THE FIRST SETTLEMENT 



57 



West Indies. They reached Maryland in the early spring of 
1634. Calvert chose as a site for his first settlement a long 
bluff near the mouth of the Potomac River. The Indians 
who occupied it were glad to share even their huts and their 
half -planted corn fields with the well-armed white men who 
might defend them from the fierce Susquehannocks living 
farther north. They received in payment axes, hoes, knives, 
and some cloth. After the 
harvest they agreed to give 
the settlers all the village and 
the land about it. One of the 
priests, Father White, took 
possession of an Indian cabin, 
and " having dressed it a little 
better," used it as a chapel. 

A few of the Indian families 
remained during the first year, 
the men teaching the settlers 
to hunt deer, partridges, and 
turkeys. The Indian squaws 
taught the white women 
how to prepare hominy and 
johnny-cake before an open 
fire. 

A Fortunate Colony. — The first settlement in Maryland 
was named St. Mary's for the Virgin Mary. A stockade was 
built around the little fort which protected the town from 
attack. St. Mary's was more fortunate in its beginnings 
than either Jamestown or Plymouth. The climate was mild 
and healthful, and the first harvest was good. The Indian 
neighbors were gentle and friendly. The colonists at the end 
of the first season sent corn to New England in exchange 
for salt fish and other things which they needed. They also 
began to trade with the Virginians, obtaining cattle, sheep, 
hogs, and hens, with which to stock their farms. 

Maryland and Virginia. — Their dealings with the Vir- 
ginians were not all friendly. The lands which King Charles 




Sir George Calvert, Lord 

Baltimore 

After a painting in the State House, 

Annapolis ] 



58 MARYLAND, A REFUGE POR ENGLISH CATHOLICS 



had given Lord Baltimore were originally a part of Virginia, 
and the Virginians objected to the loss. Indeed some 
Virginians under the leadership of William Claiborne had 
already settled on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay and were 
carrying on a profitable trade with the Indians. They soon 
quarrelled with the settlers at St. Mary's, and a petty war- 
fare was kept up for years, until the king decided in favor of 
Lord Baltimore. 

A " Proprietary " Colony. — Lord Baltimore was the " Pro- 
prietor " or owner of Maryland. The country, therefore, 

formed a huge 
private estate, 
with the colo- 
nists as tenants. 
The proprietor 
exercised the 
rights of gov- 
ernment over 
the colonists, 
much as if he 
were king. For 
this reason such 
a colony was 
was a " Royal " 
colony. In 
He gave 




Early Settlements in Maryland 



called " Proprietary," just as Virginia 
colony, and Massachusetts Bay a " Charter 
Maryland the \ proprietor appointed the governor 
the settlers lands on easy terms, collecting one shilling rent 
for each fifty acres. Plantations of a thousand acres or 
more were called manors. A colonist who held a manor 
enjoyed certain powers exercised by nobles in England, acting 
as judge in case of disputes between his tenants, and punish- 
ing their offenses. 

A Representative Assembly. — Lord Baltimore had prom- 
ised to ask the opinions of his colonists in making laws, and 
by his orders an assembly met in 1635. The laws which were 
framed were sent to England for his approval. With the 
governor's consent they could be carried out without waiting 



RELIGIOUS TOLERATION 59 

for the answer, although the proprietor always kept the right 
to veto or forbid laws. The earlier assemblies included all 
the freemen of the colony, while the later ones, as the settle- 
ments increased in number, were made up of representatives, 
like the assemblies of Virginia and Massachusetts. 

Religious Toleration. — Lord Baltimore sent Protestants 
as well as Catholics to Maryland. It was his wish that both 
should dwell together in peace. He gave strict orders to his 




DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 
A fine example of a prosperous Maryland planter's residence 

governors and to the priests not to offend the Protestants. 
For a long time, however, the officers, as well as the clergy, 
were all Catholics. 

In 1649 Lord Baltimore's policy of religious toleration was 
embodied in a law, by vote of the assembly and assent of the 
proprietor. This was the well-known Toleration Act, which 
declared " that no person or persons whatsoever within this 
province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from 
henceforth be any ways troubled ... or molested ... in 
respect to his or her religion." Lord Baltimore did not 
separate the church from the state, as did Roger Williams 
in Rhode Island, for in Maryland the government supported 
either Catholic or Protestant worship, sometimes both. 

How the Colony first looked. — Many Puritans who had 
settled in Virginia, but who were not well treated, moved 
into Maryland after the Toleration Act. Some of them 
founded Annapolis, a town which later became the capital 



60 MARYLAND, A REFUGE FOR ENGLISH CATHOLICS 

of the colony. Most of the people were scattered along the 

ts or inland upon manors, plantations, and farms. St. 
Mary's was little more than a few farm houses straggling for 
five miles along the hanks of the St. Mary's River. Chesa- 
peake Hay, with its many coves, inlets, and rivers, served in 
place of roads. Ships, as in Virginia, came to the wharves 
of the farmers and exchanged English wares for tobacco and 



***** 






Baltimore in 1752 
After an engraving in Scharf's History of Baltimore 

corn. Nearly a century passed before a town was founded 
at the head of the bay and named Baltimore in honor of the 
proprietor. 

Questions 

1. How were Roman Catholics treated in England? 

2. What territory in America did Lord Baltimore obtain? What 

did he wish to do with this? What kind of emigrants did he obtain? 

3. How long did it take to make the voyage? Why did it take so 
long? 

4. Where did Lord Baltimore's colonists settle? What bargain 
did they make with the Indians? In what ways did the Indians help 
them? Why was St. Mary's a fortunate colony? 

5. What relation existed between the Proprietor of Maryland and 
the colonists? What privileges did the colonists enjoy? 

6. What rights over his tenants did the holder of a manor have? 
What das in Europe did he somewhat resemble? 



REVIEW 



61 



7. How did Lord Baltimore manage to keep religious peace in his 
colony ? How did his method differ from the one Roger Williams put 
into practice in Rhode Island ? 

Review 

1 . The voyages of the three great discoverers — Diaz, Columbus, 
and Magellan. 

2. The conquest of Mexico by Cortes and of Peru by Pizarro. 

3. The exploration of North America by De Soto and Coronado. 
The discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto and of the St. Lawrence 
by Carrier. 

4. The Spanish settlements in the New World, especially St. 
Augustine in Florida. 

5. The first settlements of each of the rivals in North America. 

6. The barriers keeping English and Dutch explorers from the 
interior of North America. 

7. The French explorers of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi 
Valley — Champlain, Marquette, and La Salle. 

8. The settlement at Jamestown. The first work of a trading 
company and its laborers. 

9. Virginia's growth into a prosperous colony. Finding new 
laborers. 

10. English laws and customs carried to Virginia. 

11. The Separatists become exiles. > Their settlement at Plymouth. 

12. The treatment of the Puritans in England. 

13. The plan of the Massachusetts Bay Company in America. 

14. The first Great Emigration, 1 630-1 641. 

15. Exiles from Massachusetts found Rhode Island. 

16. Emigrants from Massachusetts found Connecticut. 

17. The governments of New England — town, colony, and con- 
federation. 

18. The provisions made for education in the colonies. 

19. Lord Baltimore's colony of Maryland. 

20. How Lord Baltimore managed the religion of his colony. 




A Maryland Shilling 



CHAPTER VII 

DUTCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRIES: BEGINNINGS OF A 
GREAT STATE 

Henry Hudson. — The Dutch were not far behind the 
English in trying to found colonies in America. It was an 
Englishman, Henry Hudson, then in the service of the Dutch 
East India Company, who led the way. At the time he 
reached the American coast he was in search of a passage to 




The "Half Moon" in hie Hudson River 

After the painting by T. Moran 

China. This was in 1609. He sailed as far south as Chesa- 
peake Bay, and then turned northward. Soon he entered the 
strait now called the Narrows, which separates New York 
Harbor from the sea. He saw the broad and beautiful 
river which stretches northward among the hills and which 
bears his name. As the water was salt and the tides were 
strong, he thought this might be the passage for which he 

62 



FOUNDING NEW AMSTERDAM 



63 



was looking. It is not strange that he was deceived. The 
Hudson for one hundred and fifty miles inland is not a true 
river, but a fiord or deep channel into the highlands, with a 
rock bottom below sea level. The Half Moon, Hudson's 
ship, aided by wind and tide, sailed or drifted until it was 
stopped by the shallows near the site of the present city of 
Albany. Hudson had not discovered a passage to China, 
but instead one of the most useful rivers in the world. 




The Smith's Valley 

A Dutch blacksmith shop and a farm scene, Manhattan Island, where a brookside 
path with the name of Maiden Lane followed a valley to the East River 

Founding New Amsterdam. — Hudson carried word to 
his employers that the Indians were ready to exchange 
valuable furs for knives, hatchets, beads, and similar cheap 
articles. Although the East India Company took no great 
interest in the matter, merchants sent vessels over to the 
Hudson to trade with the Indians. In 162 1 a Dutch West 
India Company was formed, mainly to plunder the Spaniards 
on the sea or in the West Indies, for the Dutch were again 
at war with Spain. 1 This company received the sole right to 
the lands about the Hudson. Its agents built a trading post 
at the lower end of Manhattan Island, which soon became 
1 See Introductory American History, Chapter XVIII. 



64 



DUTCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRIES 



known as New Amsterdam, being named for the largest city 

in Holland. They established another post on the site of 
Albany, and called it Fort Orange. The whole colony was 
called New Netherland. Peter Minuit, who was sent over 
as governor of the colony, bought Manhattan Island from the 
Indians for about $24 worth of cloth, hatchets, kettles, 
knives, and other things. This seems a small price for the 
land on which New York City stain Is, 
but the Indians were well pleased witli 
the bargain. 

New Amsterdam, like Jamestown at 
first, was the station or colony of a 
trading company rather than a real 
settlement. A few families arrived in 
1623, and others followed year by year. 
Most of their members were employed 
by the company or rented farms, or 
" boweries," from it. Even the clergy- 
man who " comforted the sick " and 
1 >reached on Sunday was paid by the 
company. 

Patroons. — Certain members of the 
West India Company were anxious that 
the settlement of their lands should go 
forward faster. It was accordingly 
agreed in 1629 that any member who should found a settle- 
ment of fifty adults within four years might have a tract ex- 
tending sixteen miles along the Hudson River, or eight miles, 
if it lay on both sides. No limits were set showing how fat- 
back these tracts should run. If the founder of the settle- 
ments, who was called a patroon or lord, should send out 
more colonists, he could have more land. The colonists were 
farm laborers or renters on the patroon's land. They could 
not hunt or fish without his consent. They must grind their 
grain at his mill and buy their cloth at the company's store- 
house, for they were not allowed to weave. They were for- 
bidden to trade with the Indians, though most of the early 




Dutch Patroon or 
Landed Proprietor 



THE DUTCH AND THE INDIANS 65 

colonists soon obtained the permission of the patroon, and 
turned fur traders. 

Such a plan was not likely to succeed, especially when colo- 
nists might obtain land on better terms from the English. 
The most successful patroonship, or manor, was founded by 
Van Rensselaer, and included a region equal to two modern 
counties around Fort Orange. The settlement soon con- 
sisted of twenty-five or thirty houses scattered along the 
Hudson. It was called Rensselaer wyck. 

The Dutch and the Indians. — The Dutch settlers, like the 
company which sent them from Europe, were interested 





An Old Dutch Manor House 

At Rensselaer, N. Y. The song of Yankee Doodle is thought to have originated here 

chiefly in trade, and especially the fur trade. If all had 
been content with that, their relations with the Indians 
would have remained friendly, because they would not have 
desired to occupy any of the Indian hunting grounds. But 
as soon as the good farm lands on Manhattan Island were 
taken, and the settlers sought more land east and west of the 
Hudson, the Indians were alarmed and angry. Both settlers 
and savages were guilty of murders. The Indians were made 
more reckless by the liquor, or " firewater," which they 
bought of the traders. The consequence was that for years 
war raged between the settlers and the Indians, and that the 
Dutch held little but Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan 



Uh 



DUTCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRIES 



Island. A wall of earth, four or five feet high, thrown up 
inside a closely-set row of pointed stakes twice as high, was 
built across the island north of the fields near the fort. This 
palisade formed some protection against an attack from the 
Indians, and later gave its name to Wall Street. 

New Settlements. — In 1646 peace was made with the 
Indians and the settlements began to spread once more. 
Wcehawken and Hoboken were two of those on the west shore 

of the Hudson. Among 
tlic villages across the 
I River on Long Island 
was Breuckelen, or Brook- 
lyn. The Dutch were not 
the only ones to. emigrate 
to the company's terri- 
tories. So many English 
and French came that the 
decisions of the company's 
officers were published in 
those languages as well as 
in Dutch. 

Trading Stations. — As 
the Dutch wen- interested chiefly in the fur trade, and as 
rivers offered the only routes for transporting furs, the Dutch 
tried to take possession of important points along the rivers. 
They had Fort Orange at the head of the deeper waters of 
the Hudson, and, somewhat later, pushed up the Mohawk 
River to the rapids, where Schenectady stands, and built 
another post. They also built a fort at the junction of the 
Schuylkill and the Delaware near the site of Philadelphia. 
They had built Fort Good Hope on the site of Hartford 
before Thomas Hooker and his followers arrived. 

The English closing in. — The presence of the Dutch 
on the Connecticut injured the fur trade of the Plymouth 
o >1< my, because the fur-bearing animals of the region near the 
coast were soon captured and it was necessary to go deeper 
into the \\o«,ds for others. Even before the Newtowne con- 




Wall Street Palisade from ihe 

East River 



ENGLISH "SEIZE NEW AMSTERDAM 



67 



gregation founded Hartford, the son of Governor Winthrop 
of Massachusetts Bay seized the mouth of the Connecticut 
and thus prevented the Dutch from using it as a trade route. 
Still worse for the Dutch was the settlement of Springfield, 
which had been the meeting place of their traders and the 
Indians for ten years. Meanwhile English settlements were 
approaching New 
Amsterdam along 
Long Island Sound, 
and were within twen- 
ty-five miles of it by 
1639. The English 
were also threatening 
the Dutch from the 
south. By 163 1 Clai- 
borne was pushing up 
the Susquehanna from 
Kent Island, in order 
to reach the sources 
of the supply of furs 
west of where the 
Dutch went to obtain 
them. 

English seize New 
Amsterdam. — Not 
many years passed 
before the English and the Dutch at home began to fight 
over trade. Never had the English Channel seen such 
battles. The hero of the Dutch was Van Tromp, who after 
a victory over the British Admiral Blake sailed down the 
Channel with a broom at his masthead, meaning that he 
had swept the English from the seas. On the whole the 
English had the best of the fighting. In 1664, during the 
second of the wars, four ships, with many soldiers on board, 
appeared before New Amsterdam. The English demanded 
the surrender of the place, but the governor, Peter Stuyvesant, 
tore up the letter containing the demand and attempted to de- 




68 



DUTCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRIES 



fend the fort. His councillors, thinking that it was hopeless 
to fight, made him piece together the fragments. When 
they saw the terms which the English offered, they compelled 
him to agree to them. 

Beginnings of New York. — Colonel Nicolls, the English 
commander, changed the name of New Amsterdam to New 
York, and the name of Fort Orange to Albany, in honor of 
James, who was both Duke of York and Duke of Albany. 
Stuyvesant continued to live on his farm, called the Great 
Bowery, until his death. The old church in the fort was 




\l\\ Amsterdam in 1655 

After Van der Donck's New Ncthcrland 



used by the Dutch Sunday mornings, by the French Protes- 
tants at mid-day, and by the English in the afternoon. The 
English mode of government was introduced within a few- 
years, including trial by jury and representative assemblies. 
The original Dutch inhabitants soon began to learn the 
English language, and became much like their English 
neighbors. 

New Jersey. — Before Colonel Nicolls had reached New 
Amsterdam the Duke of York had given to two friends, Lord 
Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, all the land from the 
Hudson to the Delaware. It was named New Jersey be- 
cause Sir George Carteret had bravely defended the island of 
Jersey against the Puritans during the English civil war. 
The proprietors were eager to attract settlers to their territory, 



THE ENGLISH HOLD THE ATLANTIC SHORE 



69 



and promised that each should worship as he wished. They 
offered 200 acres in every community for the support of the 
minister whom the settlers should choose. 

The Dutch at New York again. — The seizure of New 
Amsterdam hastened on war between England and the 
Netherlands. The Dutch 
made no attempt to re- 
cover New York. Several 
years later, in another war 
with the English, they did 
recapture New York and 
held it for 15 months. 
They were obliged to re- 
store it when peace was 
made. This was the last 
war between the Dutch 
and the English, who had 
already begun to see that 
the French and not the 
Dutch were their most 
dangerous rivals. 

The English hold the At- 
lantic Shore. — The cap- 
ture of New Netherland 
gave the English control 
of the whole Atlantic coast 
from the St. Croix River to the St. Mary's on the boundary 
of Spanish Florida. The settlement of New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, and the Carolinas, which was begun soon after New 
Amsterdam was taken, strengthened their hold on all this 
territory, for unoccupied land was always in danger of being 
seized by some rival nation. 




Bust of Peter Stuyvesant 

Set up at St. Mark's Church, New York, 
in 1915 



Questions 

1. What rivals had the English in colonizing what is now the United 
States ? What part of the Atlantic coast did Henry Hudson explore ? 
What passage did he think he had discovered ? 



7 o 



DUTCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRIES 



2. For what purpose was the Dutch West India Company formed? 
Why did it want the lands about the Hudson ? What settlements did 
the company make ? In what ways was the Dutch colony at New 
Amsterdam like Jamestown ? 

3. How did the West India Company attempt to settle its land 
faster? How well did the plan succeed . 

4. Why did the Dutch have trouble with the Indians? 

5. What settlements did the Dutch make near New Amsterdam? 
What outlying trading posts did the Dutch found? 

6 . At what poi nts were the 
English settlers and traders 
closing in on the Dutch in 
New Xetherland? 

7. What changes did the 
English make after the con- 
quest of the Dutch colony? 

8. Who obtained the Duke 
of York's lands between the 
Hudson and the Delaware ? 
What special privileges did 
the proprietors of New Jersey 
allow their settlers? 

9. How much of the Atlantic coast did England hold after the 
conquest of New Netherland ? 




The Stadt Huys, or City IIai.i , New 
York, 1678 



Exercise 

Locate on a map (see map, page 75) the English settlements which 
were nearest New Amsterdam on the east and on the west, including 
Claiborne's trade mute on the Susquehanna. 
Important "Date: 

1664. The English conquest of the Dutch colony of New Nether- 
land. 



CHAPTER VIII 
A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 

Virginia and the Commonwealth. — While civil war was 
raging in England few men thought of founding colonies in 
America. After the king's party was overthrown, many cav- 
aliers emigrated to Virginia. In 1649, 33° refugees arrived 
on one ship. Supported by them, Sir William Berkeley, the 
governor, and the General Assembly condemned the exe- 
cution of Charles I and declared their loyalty to his son 
Charles II as king. The victorious Puritans and their par- 
liament sent out an expedition to bring the defiant colony to 
terms. When it reached Virginia in 1652, Berkeley put the 
militia, 1200 strong, under arms and prepared to resist. The 
leaders of the expedition, partly by a show of force, partly by 
willingness to grant generous terms, persuaded the Virginians 
to promise obedience to the Commonwealth. 

Emigration of Royalists to Virginia. — The emigration of 
the royalist party to Virginia, however, continued. A writer 
living at the time spoke of " civil, honorable, and men of 
great estates " flocking in. One of them was John Wash- 
ington, great-grandfather of George Washington. Within 
twenty years the population increased from 15,000 to 40,000. 
After 1660, when Charles II was restored to his father's 
throne, fewer of the royalist party came over. 

The West Indies. 1 — Another region to which many emi- 
grants went from England at about this time was the West 
Indies. The Spaniards did not make as much use of these 
islands as they did of Mexico and Peru, but they wished to 
keep out the sailors of other nations. Adventurers from 

1 It should be remembered that since the occupation of Porto Rico 
and the building of the Panama Canal the history of the West India 
Islands has become of great interest to the people of the United States. 

71 



7 2 



A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 



everywhere sailed the West Indian seas. They attacked 
Spanish treasure ships, loaded with gold and silver from the 
mines, and even cities like Vera Cruz and Panama. To 
obtain food they hunted wild cattle, smoking the meat over 
wood fires called boucanes. This gave them the name 
" buccaneers." They were also called " freebooters " or 
" filibusters," from their swift ships, vliebootcn or " flying 
boats." Some of them settled on unoccupied islands, the 
French at Martinique, Guadeloupe, and western Haiti,' the 




Gulf of 



Mexico ^2f ,.a s \ 

,.jfl» coosQ* M»«au* 



WEST INDIES 




> 1m£»om . 

(/TAILING |.) 

* . '* A T L 

--"IK" 



9 - j - 



A N T I 



X^T'^-V. IUHKS 

V-2 A_ <? "' ^ OCEAN 

"* v ^ • OUADELOI 



I * * T , L L E | 

9 C A R I B B E A X 8 B A 

CENTRAL 



GUADELOUPE 
I* 

DOMINI-TAB, 

LESSER . 

MARTINIQUE^ 

BARBADOS 

ST.VINCENTf • 

ANTILLES 



Dutch at Curacao, and the English at Barbados. About 
1640 these settlers began to raise cane sugar. The Dutch, 
however, were mainly interested in smuggling. Their settle- 
ment at Curacao was the great market at which to obtain 
the products of Europe and the East Indies. Even Spanish 
colonists traded there, because the merchants of Spain asked 
higher prices than the Dutch. 

1 Columbus called this island Espafiola, or "Little Spain." One of 
the chief towns was named Santo Domingo, and in time the English, 
French, and even the Spanish gave thai name to the entire island. 
Early in the nineteenth century some leading writers on geography 
suggested the use of the original Indian name, Haiti, which meant 
"mountainous country," and this is new the usual one for the island. 



DISSENTERS 



73 



Dissenters. — Religious troubles again became the prin- 
cipal reason for emigration to America as soon as Charles II 
was made king. He was surrounded by his father's friends 
and supporters, who insisted that the rules of the church 
made under Queen Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, should 
be enforced. Rather than submit, 2000 clergymen gave 
up their parishes. As they dissented from the methods of 
worship ordered by law, they were from that time commonly 
called " Dissenters." The most 
numerous were the Presbyterians, 
the Independents or Congrega- 
tionalists, and the Baptists. If 
they attempted to meet for wor- 
ship, they were thrown into prison. 

The Society of Friends. — An- 
other group of Dissenters was the 
Society of Friends, or the Quakers. 
The founder of the Quakers was 
George Fox. He thought that all 
God's children should be treated 
as brethren. He spoke with no 
greater respect to the magistrate 
than to ordinary men, refusing to 

give any man a title, and addressing each with " thee " 
and " thou." He and his followers would not take off their 
hats even in a court room. They believed so firmly in the 
brotherhood of man that they would neither bear arms 
themselves nor pay for the support of soldiers. As they 
would not obey laws of which their consciences disapproved, 
they were often arrested and thrown into prison. About 
3000 were arrested in the first two years of the reign of 
Charles II. 

William Penn. — The most prominent Quaker in England 
at this time was William Penn, son of Admiral Penn, who 
was a favorite with King Charles II. The old admiral was 
at first enraged when his son became a Quaker, but finally 
forgave him. On the death of the admiral in 1670, William 




William Penn 

After the painting by Benjamin 

West 



74 



A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 



Liicly Granted by the 



inherited the family estate, which gave him an income equal 
--•5,000 or $30,000 at the present <lu\ . 

Six years later Penn purchased a share in Xew Jersey, 
which had already heroine a refuge for distressed Quakers. 

A brief Account or the They settled mostly in 

the western part of the 

iPiotnnce ° f ipmnfptoama, col ° n y along the peia- 

ware. By 1682 IVnn 
and other wealthy 
Quakers owned all the 
shares of the original 
proprietors. Many 
Puritans had also 
come in from Con- 
necticut and had se- 
lected farms in north- 
ern New Jersey. 

The "Holy Experi- 
ment." — Meanwhile 
Penn had become in- 
terested in another 
plan of colony build- 
ing, which he called his 
"Holy Experiment." 
As King Charles owed 
him money borrowed 
from his father, Penn 
asked for a grant of 
land west of the Dela- 
and north of 



KING, 

Under the GREAT 

Seal of England, 
WILLIAM PENN 



AND HIS 



s 



Heirs and Aliigns. 

luce (by ibe good Provijciue ot C.J. and the Fivouf ol the *.■■/) • 
Country , n A-«*ut a fallen 10 my Loi. I thought ii not Irfi my 
Duiy. then myHofieft Inicrcl), to give fume publick notice of Ii lo 
ibe W01U, thu thofc of our own or other NmmM, that are intb'n'd 
loTiinfpoil Thrtnfclvci or f imilici beyond ihc bit, may find ano 
thet Country iddcd lo [heir Choice ; that if ihey fhall happen to lake 
the Place. Cond«ioni, «nd Government, (fo far itihcmcfeni Inlancyof thirgi 
wdl allow n my profpefl J they may, if they pleafe. h» with me in the Pro- 
vince, hereafter dcfcritxd 

I. Tie KING'S Title to lh» Country before he grinteA is. 
It it (be J~ Ci»i..m, or Law of Naiioru, that *hat ever Wide, or unar. 
tedCountry, n the Dlfcovery of any Pnnct, it a the light of thit Print* that 
uu at the Chatgc of the Dfcovere: Now this ttttimt n a Member of that 
(.in of A~>r.(., which the King of L»rUtJi Ancefton hive been at the Chaigc 
of D'.r.oTermg, and which thry aod he" have taken jicat cue to preferve anl 

,m,,,0 ' , ll.Willi.n, 

First Page ob Pbnn's "Account of 

I'l \\s\H \M\ " 

Reduced facsimile 



wan- 



He pro- 
file king 



Maryland 

posed to call the country New Wales or Sylvania. 
granted the land, and insisted on the latter name, and, in 
honor of Admiral Penn, placed "Penn" before it, making 
"Pennsylvania," or " Penn's wood." 

Delaware.- The year after Penn had obtained Pennsyl- 
vania from the king, he induced the king's brother, the Duke 



A PROPRIETARY COLONY 



75 



of York, to give him the land which now makes up the state 
of Delaware. Penn thus in 1681 and 1682 possessed all the 
lands along the west side of the Delaware River from its 
mouth almost to its source. 

Penn seeks for Emigrants. — Penn expected to find 
many settlers among the persecuted Quakers, but he wished 
also to obtain other industrious persons. In order to attract 
them to his col- 
ony he prepared 
an Account of the 
Province of Penn- 
sylvania, which 
he sent to many 
places in the 
British Isles. He 
had it translated 
into French, Ger- 
man, and Dutch, 
so that Euro- 
peans might read 
about the enter- 
prise, and, per- 
haps, come to 
America and join 
the colony. 

A Proprietary 
Colony. — Penn 

was proprietor of his colony, as Lord Baltimore was of Mary- 
land. Even before he had any settlers he wrote out a con- 
stitution, from the words of which it was clear that he was 
interested in something more than the profits of the enter- 
prise. Through councils and assemblies he planned to share 
the management of the colony with the settlers. In the 
laws which he drew up he showed that he was far ahead 
of most men of his day. For example, prisoners were not 
to be tormented and starved as they were in English prisons 
at that time, but were to be fed and clothed. Penn be- 




-f D fAVIln, ... 



The Middle Colonies 



76 A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 

licvcd that the aim should be to reform rather than simply to 
punish them. 

The Founding of Philadelphia, 1682. — Perm sent his 
eousin, William Markham, to Pennsylvania in 1681 with a 
party of colonists. He followed, the next year, with about a 
hundred others, mostly Quakers from his own neighborhood 
in England. Others of the early settlers came from Wales 
and Ireland. The first party of colonists selected a site for a 
town about one hundred and twenty miles up the Delaware 
River. Broad streets and squares were laid out in a grove of 
pine trees on a low bluff along the river front. Perm called 
his town Philadelphia, a Greek word meaning " brotherly 
love." 

Growth of the Colony. — ■ Penn's colony grew rapidly. As 
the lands about Philadelphia were soon taken, later comers 
scattered along the Delaware River within the limits of 
Delaware and eastern Pennsylvania. One of the earlier 
settlers wrote an account of his experiences. "I settled," 
he wrote, " upon my tract of land, which I purchased of 
the Proprietor . . . and set up a house and a corn mill 
which was very useful to the country for several miles 
round. But there not being plenty of horses, people gener- 
ally brought their corn on their backs many miles ; I remem- 
ber one man who had a bull so gentle that he used to bring 
his corn on him instead of a horse." Many of the settlers 
in the first years had neither horses nor plows. As the colo- 
nists were industrious and thrifty there was no starving time 
in Pennsylvania. 

Germantown. — Among the earlier bands of settlers were 
twelve or thirteen German families, mostly weavers, under 
the leadership of Francis Daniel Pastorius. They reached 
Philadelphia in 1683 and were welcomed by Pcnn. They 
bought a tract of land a few miles north of the town, and 
began the settlement known as Germantown. 

Penn's Treaties with the Indians. — Pcnn was much inter- 
ested in the Indians, and often traveled among them. In 
June, 1683, he met a large number of chiefs and their warriors 



PENN'S TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS 



77 



under a great elm tree near Philadelphia and made a treaty 
with them. The spot where this Treaty Elm stood is now 
marked by a monument, and is within the present limits of 
the city. Penn described the treaty in a letter to his friends 
in England, — " great promises passed between us of kind- 
ness and good neighborhood, and that the Indians and 
English must live in love as long as the sun gave light." 

Penn purchased the land from the Indians, although the 
king had given it to him. He bought from a chief one tract 




The First Town Hall and Court House, Philadelphia 

of land as far back from the Delaware as a man could ride 
on horseback in two days. The chief was to receive "so 
much wampum, so many guns, shoes, stockings, looking- 
glasses,' blankets, and other goods as William Penn shall 
please to give us." 

Penn's Return to England. — Penn was obliged to return 
to England in 1684, and, except for a brief visit many years 
later, saw nothing more of his colonies. Most matters of 
government were left to the colonists themselves or to a 
commission, and later to a deputy governor who represented 



78 



A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 




■V \ 1607 \ 

NORTH CAROLINA «.' 



him as proprietor. 1'enn tried to manage matters by cor- 
respondence, but he was too far away. 

The Carolinas. — During this period of rapid emigration 
from England to Pennsylvania many Dissenters also went to 
the Carolinas. The settlements in northern and southern 
Carolina were not planned at first, like Pennsylvania, as 
a refuge for the oppressed. They were more like the original 

settlement of Virginia. In- 
deed, the first settlers came 
from Virginia, following the 
Indian trails along the coast. 
They cleared land on the 
Chowan River near Albe- 
marle Sound. They were al- 
ready there when Charles II 
gave to eight noblemen all the 
territory from the southern 
boundary of Virginia to Span- 
ish Florida. The region had 
long been known as Carolina, 
a name given it in honor of 
the king's father, Charles I. 

Charleston. — The proprie- 
tors of Carolina were not con- 
tent with the small colony 
of Virginians on the Chowan 
River, and in 1670 they sent to southern Carolina a larger 
body of settlers, partly from England and partly from Bar- 
bados. The colonists began their settlement on an excellent 
harbor at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper rivers. 
They named it for the king, Charles Town or Charleston. 
Some years later their settlement was moved to the site of 
the present city. 

The colonists at Charleston remembered the fate of the 
French colony at Fort Caroline a hundred years before, and 
feared a similar attack from the Spaniards. Their fears 
were not groundless, for within a few weeks a Spanish vessel, 




'O i^l \St.AugutUne 




The Carolina Coast 



THE CAROLINAS 



79 



sent to break up the settlement, appeared off the harbor. 
The Spaniards on board, finding the settlers on their guard, 
returned to St. Augustine without striking a blow. Some 
years later they destroyed a small Scotch settlement nearer 
the borders of Florida. 

Huguenots in South Carolina. — Charleston and the 
country around became a refuge for many Huguenots, or 
French Protestants, who had fled because Louis XIV would 
no longer allow them to wor- 
ship as they believed right. 
The proprietors were glad to 
obtain such valuable settlers, 
and offered them full religious 
liberty. Merchants, gold- 
smiths, shipwrights, weavers, 
and men of other trades 
found employment in Charles- 
ton. At least seventy fami- 
lies took up lands along the 
rivers back of the early set- 
tlements. Part of southern 
Carolina seemed for a while 
almost a French colony, as there were so many settlers who 
could not speak English. 

The Carolinas divided. — The proprietors did not con- 
sider the settlements on the Albemarle and at Charleston as 
two distinct colonies, but as parts of one. They were, how- 
ever, too far apart to have any dealings with each other. It 
was nearly three hundred miles from one to the other, and 
by land only Indian trails connected them. Stormy Cape 
Hatteras projected into the ocean far enough to make the 
journey in small sailing vessels very dangerous. Each 
colony liked to manage its own affairs without much inter- 
ference from the proprietors. Years later, by 1729, the 
proprietors surrendered their rights in the colony to the 
king. It was then divided into North Carolina and South 
Carolina. 




Charleston Harbor 



8o 



A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 



Size of the Second " Great Emigration." —By 1700, 5000 
colonists lived in southern Carolina, and 3000 in northern 
Carolina. About 20,000 people had gone from Europe to 
Pennsylvania and Delaware ; the majority of these were 
Quakers. About 14,000 had settled in New Jersey — the 
Quakers in the west, Puritans from New England in the 
north, and English and Scotch in the east, besides some 




Charleston in 1673 

From an uld print 

Dutch on the banks of the Hudson. Meanwhile the popu- 
lation of New York had increased to 25,000, the city on 
Manhattan Island numbering 5000. Most of the early 
emigration to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Carolinas 
took place in the years from 1680 to 1690, and was due to 
religious troubles in England and Europe. This is the second 
great emigration in American history. 

Oglethorpe's Plan to aid Poor Debtors. — The Carolina 
frontier was exposed to attacks from the Spaniards in Florida 
and their Indian allies. It was no wonder that the inhab- 
itants of South Carolina were <;lad when they heard that a new- 
colony was to be established between their settlements and 
Florida. In 1732 James Oglethorpe and his friends in 



FOUNDING OF GEORGIA 



81 



England obtained the right to found a colony south of the 
Savannah River. They gave the name Georgia to the ter- 
ritory in honor of George II, who was then king of England. 
Oglethorpe was interested in any plan to help the poor. In 
those days the English law allowed a creditor to send to jail 
any one who owed him and could not pay the debt. The 
jails were horrible places, filthy, and overrun with vermin, 
where prisoners held for all sorts of crimes were herded 
together. The jailer was often cruel and cheated his 
prisoners, if he did not torture them. There was little chance 




Settlements in Georgia 

This map shows the size of the original grant of Georgia in 1732 

that a poor debtor once sent to such a place would live to get 
out. Oglethorpe thought it better to send such persons to 
America where they might start anew. He chose as the motto 
of the colony, " Not for self, but for others." He expected 
no gain for himself ; indeed, he used his own money to further 
the enterprise. 

Founding of Georgia. — Oglethorpe went to Georgia in 
1733. He was accompanied by 35 poor families, selected 
out of a large number willing to go. They went up the 
Savannah River about ten miles and began a town which 
they called Savannah, using the Indian name of the river. 
Like William Penn and Roger Williams, Oglethorpe first 
made peace with the Indians, buying the land from them. 
Savannah 'was laid out with broad streets and large parks. 



82 A second GREAT EMIGRATION 

Fifty acres of land were given to each family. Oglethorpe 
received aid from the English government and from wealthy 
friends in buying arms, farm tools, seed, and supplies. The 
people of South Carolina sent 100 head of cattle, a drove of 
hogs, a flock of sheep, and 20 barrels of rice. Several went 
to Savannah with their servants to aid the new colony in 
building houses. Everything seemed hopeful. 

The Troubles of Georgia. — Poor men who could not make 
a living in England were not well fitted for the hardships of 
a new country. Others came, but progress was slow. The 
colonists complained because they were not allowed at first 
to hold slaves, like the South Carolinians. They were ham- 
pered also by the size of the farms, which were too small to 
be treated as plantations. In 1743 Oglethorpe returned to 
England discouraged. Nine years later he and his friends 
gave up their rights in the colony, which then came directly 
under control of the king. A small trading station at 
Augusta, far inland on the Savannah River, gave the Geor- 
gians a share in the fur trade with the Indians. 

New Emigrants and New Frontiers. — Once early emi- 
grants had founded colonies on the Atlantic coast, other 
emigrants came year by year to join them. We may think 
of the continuous flow of emigrants after the Second Great 
Emigration as a third period in colonial history, that of 
growth and the establishment of new frontiers. In the 
first half of the eighteenth century the number of persons in 
the colonies increased steadily and rapidly. By 1750 there 
were nearly a million and a half, about five times as many 
as in 1700. In some parts of the country, in New England 
for example, the increase was due mainly to the growth of 
families which had arrived in the earlier years of the settle- 
ments. Many contained seven or eight children, who left the 
old home to help found families of their own. In other parts 
of the country the native families increased rapidly, and 
thousands of emigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, and 
Germany, or from the older colonies, arrived to swell the 
numbers. 



REDEMPTIONERS 



83 



The first settlements had been made on the coast or on the 
banks of some bay or river, at a place which sea-going ships 
might reach. As the population increased, the better lands 
were soon taken up, and newcomers as well as enterprising 
young men and women of the older settlements left the coast, 
moved farther up the rivers, or climbed the foothills of the 




King's Bench 



Prison, London, for Poor Debtors in the 
Eighteenth Century 



great Appalachian barrier. New frontiers were formed. In 
this way began the westward movement, which was not to 
stop until it reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. 

Redemptioners. — Many of those who arrived in the 
colonies would not have been able to come had not some 
one lent them the money. Often they agreed to work a 
certain number of years in return for it. In this case they 
were called " indentured servants," as at Jamestown, or 
quite as often " redemptioners," because they expected to 
redeem or free themselves by work. Fortunately the 
farmer-masters were generally kind, and taught the new- 
comer the things that he would need to know when he should 
become a farmer on his own account. In this respect the 



8 4 



A SECOND GREAT EMIGRATION 




I 



plan was very much like a colonial custom of apprenticeship 

brought from the old country by which boys learned 

trades. At the end of 
the years of service the 
indentured servant or 
rcdemptioncr became 
free. He received a 
gift from his master — 
clothing, wheat for seed, 
and a pig or calf for 
his future farm. The 
c< »1( my usually gave him 
a tract of land on the 
frontier. The women 
received clothing. In 
this way, by a few- 
years of labor a man or 

woman, and even a boy or girl, became a free and prosperous 

colonist in the new country. 




■ T -r- 

m ■■ 



A Mountain Home in the Southern 
Highlands 



Questions 

1. Who came to America after the English civil war? Where did 
these emigrants settle? What colony did Englishmen Found in the 
West Indies? What one did they take from the Spaniards? 

2. Who were the Dissenters? How were they treated in England ? 

3. Why did Penn become interested in America? Where did the 
Quakers at first settle? Who besides Quakers settled in New J ■ 

4. What was Perm's "Holy Experiment"? What lands did Penn 
secure in America? In what ways did Penn show himself liberal with 
his colonists ? 

5. Who formed Penn's first colonists? Where did they make their 
chief settlements? 

6. How did Penn manage to keep the friendship of the Indians? 

7. How did Penn govern his colony after returning to England? 

8. Who first settled within what is now North Carolina? Who 
obtained the rights over the Carolinas? What other settlement did 
the proprietors make-? 

9. Who beside-, English Dissenters went to South Carolina? 
How were the Huguenots treated in South Carolina? 



REVIEW 85 

10. Why were the Carolinas separated? Who obtained the rights 
of the proprietors over the Carolinas? 

1 1 . What was Oglethorpe's plan for aiding English debtors ? Why- 
did the people of South Carolina welcome neighbors and help them ? 

12. Why did Georgia grow slowly? Who took Oglethorpe's place 
as head of the colony ? 

13. How many people were there in the English colonies by 1750? 
What was the chief way in which New England increased in population 
after the first settlement? What large bodies of emigrants swelled 
the numbers in the other colonies ? 

14. Why did men leave the older settlements for the frontier? What 
name is given in American history to the constant movement of settlers 
toward the frontier ? 

15. How could poor boys and girls get to America? What became 
of the indentured servants when their time was up ? 

Exercises 

1. Make three lists: (1) one of the colonies established by pro- 
prietors, (2) of those established by the effort of a trading company, 
and (3) of those planted by the voluntary effort of the colonists. 
I 2. What was the first great emigration in American history? Was 
its cause similar to that of the second great emigration? Where did 
the emigrants settle in each case? 

Review 

Founding of the English Colonies 

1607. The Virginia Company founds a colony at Jamestown. 

1620. The Pilgrims settle at Plymouth. 

1630. The Massachusetts Bay Company founds a colony at Boston 

and at other places on Massachusetts Bay. 
1634. Baltimore starts a settlement at St. Mary's. 
1636. Emigrants from Massachusetts begin the towns of Connecticut. 
1636. Roger Williams and other exiles from Massachusetts found 

settlements in Rhode Island. 
1638. Puritans from England found a colony at New Haven. 
1665. The proprietors of New Jersey begin the active settlement of 

a new colony. Earlier settlers had established themselves 

at various places. 
1670. The proprietors of the Carolinas found Charleston, though not 

the first settlement in the Carolinas. 
1 68 1. Penn sends a body of Quakers to Pennsylvania. Philadelphia 

founded in 1682. 
!733- Oglethorpe begins a settlement at Savannah, Georgia. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE FRENCH RIVALS 

The First French Settlements. — While the English were 
busy planting colonies along the Atlantic shore the French 
had entered the St. Lawrence Valley, discovered the Great 
Lakes, and explored the Mississippi. Their first leader was 
Samuel de Champlain, who sailed for America in 1604. 



*m £ 



■i ■ 1 







CBAMPLAIN'S I'm. 11 1 unit 1111 [ROQUOIS 
After a drawing by Champlain in hi> Voyages 

After exploring the coast he concluded that the region of 
the St. Lawrence offered the best chance for a successful 
colony. He selected a point where the river, very broad in 
its lower course, narrows to less than a mile. Close to the 
banks rises a high plateau with steep, rocky slopes, easy to 
defend againsl an enemy. The strait, or narrows, was 
Called " Quebec " by the Indians, and this name was given 

86 



DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT LAKES 



87 



to Champlain's village. Three years later Montreal was 
founded just below the Lachine Rapids, where the Ottawa 
River empties into the St. Lawrence. 

Discovery of the Great Lakes. — Like all other explorers 
Champlain was anxious to discover some passage to the South 
Sea. He was soon on good terms with his Indian neighbors, 
the Algonquins, but gained the hatred 
of the powerful Iroquois by joining 
the Algonquins in an attack upon 
them on the shores of the beautiful 
lake which now bears his name. Be- 
cause of their hostility he did not visit 
Lake Erie, but he discovered Lake 
Ontario. 

His most wonderful journey took 
him to Lake Huron. He followed 
the Ottawa River to its source, crossed 
over to streams flowing westward 
through a chain of small lakes, and 
paddled down to Georgian Bay and 
on to Lake Huron. Before he died, 
in 1635, his men had discovered Lake 
Superior and Lake Michigan. 

Father Marquette. — After the 
death of Champlain other Frenchmen 
pushed forward the work of exploring s ' TATXJ}i c 
the western country. Some of these 
were missionaries, especially Jesuits 
or members of the Society of Jesus, who went into this 
region to establish mission stations among the Indians. 
Father Jacques Marquette was one of these. The Indians 
from time to time gave him reports of a great river beyond 
the Lakes. Marquette thought that this might lead to the 
South Sea. 

Discovery of the Mississippi. — In 1673, in company with 
Louis Joliet, a fur trader, and five men, Marquette set out 
in search of the river. Their outfit consisted of two canoes 




At Marquette, Mich. 



88 



THE FRENCH RIVALS 




.ST. LOUIS 

G U L FS-O^F, \! F. X I C 






♦ - ' • taSaH '. 

rty. 



Map of La Salle's Explorations 

and a supply of smoked beef and Indian corn. From Lake 
Michigan they turned into the Fox River. Near the head 
of the Fox, Indian guides showed them an easy path or 
portage to the headwaters of the Wisconsin River. They 
paddled down the Wisconsin until they reached the Missis- 
sippi, the great river that the Indians had described. Mar- 
quette followed its course for a month, passing the point 
where the swift but muddy waters of the Missouri joined it. 
He also saw the lonely forest which was to be the site of 



LA SALLE EXPLORES THE MISSISSIPPI 



89 



St. Louis, and passed the mouth of the Ohio. Near the 
mouth of the Arkansas River, not far from where De Soto 
had crossed the Mississippi more than a hundred years 
before, the little party turned back. They had discovered 
that the Mississippi would not carry them to the Pacific. 

La Salle explores the Mississippi. — The greatest of 
French explorers was La Salle. Moved by the story of 
Marquette's discovery he resolved to trace the great river 
to its mouth and claim the 
whole region for his king and 
country. Twice he attempted 
the long and difficult voyage 
from the St. Lawrence to the 
Mississippi. Finally, in 1682, 
he was successful. 

The little company of French 
woodsmen and Indians left 
Lake Michigan in midwinter 
and dragged their canoes over 
the ice to the headwaters of 
the Illinois, and paddled down 
the dangerous stream, in the 
midst of breaking ice, to the 
Mississippi. After they reached the Mississippi their task 
was easier, although their frail canoes were often in peril. 
In the balmy spring of 1682, after a voyage of three months 
and a half, they arrived at the mouth of the river. La Salle 
solemnly took possession of the whole valley, including, he 
said, " all the nations, peoples, provinces, cities, towns, 
villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams, and rivers." 
This was a way explorers had of claiming everything. He 
set up a pole bearing the arms of France, with an inscription 
or writing giving the date and the king's name. He also 
buried a leaden plate similarly marked. A wooden cross 
was planted beside the pole. He named the region Louisiana 
in honor of King Louis XIV. A few years later La Salle 
lost his life in an attempt to found a settlement there. 




Robert Cavelier, Sieur de 
La Salle 



go 



THE FRENCH RIVALS 



Jesuit Missionaries. — One purpose which the founders of 
the French colonics had was the conversion of the Indians 
to the Christian faith. Missionaries, accordingly, were 
prominent in the Canadian settlements. The Jesuits were 
especially zealous, brave, and self-sacrificing. They pushed 
ahead of the other settlers, seeking new tribes near which to 
establish stations. Their lives were often in danger. Some 

suffered untold tortures, and 
others were burned at the 
-*at stake. The world has no 

nobler story than the record 
of their labors and their mar- 
tyrdom. 

The Beginnings of Canadian 
Towns. — An Indian mission 
station began with a chapel 
made of bark, which was 
soon replaced by a well-built 
church. The first mission- 
aries, like the traders, lived 
among the Indians. As the 
mission prospered, separate 
homes were built for them 
near the church. If the gov- 
ernor of Canada deemed the 
settlement important, a few 
soldiers were stationed there. 
A storehouse for traders was also built, and the whole group 
of houses surrounded by a palisade to guard against sudden 
attack by hostile Indians. Usually the wigwams of friendly 
Indians stood not far away on the edge of a wood. Such was 
the beginning of many a Canadian town. Father Mar- 
quette had founded a station of this sort on the Straits of 
Mackinac. It was from there that he set out in search of the 
Mississippi River in 1673. Another station was established 
in 1 701 on the river which joins Lake Erie and Lake Huron, 
and was named Detroit. 




A COUREUR DE BOIS OK WOOD- 
RANC.KK 
Pushing into the interior in search 
of the best places for trade with the 
Indians 



CONFLICT WITH THE ENGLISH 



91 



Fur Trade. — As the fur trade was profitable, about a 
third of the French colonists made no attempt to cultivate 
the soil. They pushed deeper and deeper into the woods in 
search of the best places at which to trade with the Indians. 
These wood-rangers, or coureurs de bois as the French called 
them, lived with the Indians most of the year, and differed 
from them little in dress and habits. The king's officers 
threatened to brand any who went among the Indians with- 
out a license, because they feared the farms would be aban- 
doned, but many young men were fascinated by life in the 







A View of Detroit in 1705 
After an old print 



woods and ran the risk. The Indians often brought their 
furs to the larger towns. Annual fairs were held at posts like 
Mackinac, Detroit, and Montreal. To them came throngs of 
Indians with heavily loaded canoes and set up their wigwams. 
Conflict with the English. — The French were not left 
long in undisturbed possession of Canada. The first quarrel 
was about the fur trade. In 1670 a number of English 
nobles, including the king's brother James, proprietor of 
New York, formed the Hudson Bay Company, and obtained 
from Charles II the right to all the country drained by the 
rivers which flowed into Hudson Bay. Their agents estab- 
lished posts on the shores of the bay and began to take 



9 2 



THE FRENCH RIVALS 



trade from the French by offering better prices to the In- 
dians. The French resolved to ruin these rivals, and in 1685 
a war party started up the Ottawa River for Hudson Bay. 
But the English could not be driven away, and the French 
were finally obliged to leave the Hudson Bay Company's 
territory alone. 

The Iroquois become " English." — About the same time 
the French and the English began to struggle for the control 

" of the Iroquois Indians, the 1 >< >wer- 

| ... .^ -~ . \ — ful group of tribes which held all 

— northern and western New York. 
French Jesuit missionaries had 
already gone among the Iroquois, 
but did not succeed in winning 
them as they won the Indians else- 
where. While James was still 
Duke of York and proprietor of 
this region, his agents met the 
Iroquois chiefs at Albany and per- 
suaded them to acknowledge that 
they were subjects of the king of 
England. The English then hung 
up at the Indian towns and 
strongholds the coat of arms of 
Duke James, and warned French 
parties which attempted to enter 
the region that they were trespassing on English territory. 
The Horrors of War. — Soon afterward England and 
France began to fight over their rivalries in Europe. The 
two first wars lasted twenty years, and were called King 
William's War and Queen Anne's War. This caused fight- 
ing between the English and the French colonists. Both 
sides made use of Indian allies in attacking one another, en- 
couraging them to rob and murder in heartless fashion. In 
1690 a party of French and Indians stole through the open 
gate of the frontier village of Schenectady at about eleven 
o'clock on a cold winter night. In a short time they killed 




Door of House in Deer- 
field, Massachusetts, at- 
tacked by Indians in 
Queen Anne's War 

In Dcerficld Museum 



THE FRENCH AND THE MISSISSIPPI 



93 



more than half of the inhabitants and carried away many 
as captives. The English soon had their revenge, for with 
a band of their Indian allies they attacked a small village 
on the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal, burnt the houses, 
slaughtered the cattle, and killed or captured as many of 
the inhabitants as they could find. 

Conquest of Acadia. — Before these two wars were over 
the English gained one important territory. In 17 10 an 




Portages indicated thu.> : — 

Map of Portages in New France and the Illinois Country 

The rivers and lakes, with their portages, were the highways for the 
missionaries, fur traders, and explorers 

English army, with the aid of colonists, mainly from Boston, 
conquered Acadia, the most easterly of the French Canadian 
colonies. Port Royal, its capital, had been founded by 
Champ lain. The English changed the name of Acadia to 
Nova Scotia and of Port Royal to Annapolis. For a long 
time few Englishmen cared to emigrate to Nova Scotia and 
the colony remained French, though ruled by English officers. 
The French in the Mississippi Valley. — While the English 
were slowly advancing upon the French from the north and 



94 



I 111-; FKEM'll RIVALS 




the east, that is, from the shores of Hudson Bay and from 
Nova Scotia, the French strengthened their hold on the 
Mississippi Valley, especially at its southern end on the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The man who won fame in this enterprise was Pierre le 
Moyne, commonly known as Iberville. He had led the 
French against the English on the shores of Hudson Bay. 
Now, in the interval between King William's War and Queen 

Anne's War, with a little 
fleet of four vessels, hav- 
ing on board 200 colonists 
and soldiers, he sailed 
from France in search of 
the Mississippi. Iber- 
ville was a great admirer 
of La Salle and resolved 
to push forward the 
work which La Salle had 
begun. In March, 1699, 
he discovered the Missis- 
sippi and rowed up its 
waters as far as the 
mouth of the Red River. Tonty, one of La Salle's men, 
who since his leader's death had remained at Fort St. Louis 
on the Illinois River, soon learned of the successful attempt 
of the French to take possession of the region at the mouth 
of the Mississippi, and sent messages and advice to them. 

The English Peril Again. — Before the year was out a 
French party floating down the river suddenly came upon an 
English sixtecn-gun ship a few miles below where New Orleans 
now stands. This ship had been sent out by one of the 
proprietors of Carolina to found settlements which should 
protect the western part of the region which the Carolina 
proprietors supposed they owned. In the grants to pro- 
prietors or companies the English kings had usually said 
that their lands extended westward to the Pacific Ocean. 
Nevertheless, the captain of the ship was persuaded not to 



Rains of Old Kaskaskia 

From a recent photograph. There was once 
a French village of 80 houses where these ruins 
stand, about 60 miles below St. Louis at the 
mouth of the Kaskaskia River 



FRENCH SETTLEMENTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI 



95 



attempt a settlement, the French telling him that they had a 
large force established farther up the river. 

A year later another party of Frenchmen discovered an 
English trader at the mouth of the Arkansas River. He 
also was from Carolina, one of those who with pack horses 
were making their way over the low southern ranges of the 
Appalachian barrier and trying to establish a trade in furs 
with the Indians, even with the tribes beyond the southern 
Mississippi. The route was long and perilous and the 
French were in no great danger from this quarter. 




New Orleans in 1718 
After an old print 

French Settlements on the Mississippi. — As the new cen- 
tury began the French were busily establishing settlements 
up and down the great valley. They extended from Cahokia 
and Kaskaskia in the Illinois country to Mobile on the coast. 
In 1 7 18 Bienville, Iberville's brother, founded New Orleans 
on a plain which was fairly dry, though surrounded by 
marshes. An embankment, or levee, was built around the 
little settlement to protect it from river floods. Already the 
settlements of the Illinois country had been placed under 
the governor of the new colony at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. New Orleans became the chief market, being much 
more easily reached than Montreal or Quebec. The men of 
the Illinois country loaded their furs, flour, and pork on wide, 



96 THE FRENCH RIVALS 

flat barges and floated down to New Orleans. The journey 
homeward was much more difficult, hundreds of miles against 
the current. They took back sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco, 
and articles from France. 

By the close of the first two or three decades of the eigh- 
teenth century it looked as if the French had outstripped the 
English in the discovery and occupation of the Mississippi 
Valley, the broadest and richest region within what is now 
the United States. The question was, could they hold it? 

Questions 

i. What region did Champlain choose f < >r a French settlement? 
Why? 

2. What allies did Champlain have among the Indians? 

3. By what route did Marquette find the Mississippi? What part 
irth America did La Salic explore ? 

4. What part did the Jesuits and traders have in the spread of 
French settlements ? 

5. Why did France have difficulty in obtaining farmers to cultivate 
the soil of Canada? How did the wood-rangers live? In what two 
ways did the French people carry on the fur trade with the Indians ' 

6. Why did the English form the Hudson Bay Company? 

7. Why did both the French and the English try to win the friend- 
ship of the Iroquois? Which succeeded? 

8. What part had the Indians in the border wars between the 
French and the English ? 

9. What colony did the English take from the French by conquest 
in the war ending in 1 71 3? What was its new name? 

nt. What new colony had the French just founded, making up for 
the loss of Acadia? Who had attempted before [berville to found a 
colony on the lower Mississippi ? What signs were there that the French 
settlements on the Mississippi were not entirely safe from attack? 

11. How extensive were the French settlements in the West? 

Exercises 

1. By use of the map, page 93, find the various waterways by 
which the French could travel from Canada to their settlements in 
the Mississippi Valley. 

Important Dates: 

1701. The French begin a settlement at Detroit within what is 

now the United Si I 
1 7 1 8. The founding of New < Means by the French. 



CHAPTER X 

HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 

Changes in Manner of Living. — As the colonists increased 
in number the principal settlements changed in appearance. 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and a few other places 
began to resemble English cities. The well-to-do built 
houses much like those which were being built by the Lon- 




Home of a Prosperous Colonist in the South 
Westover Mansion, the home of Colonel Byrd, on the James River 

don merchants of the time. Some of them are still standing. 1 
The cities, however, were small, Philadelphia, the largest, 
having only 20,000 inhabitants. 

On the new frontier the settlers lived like the first inhabi- 
tants of Plymouth or Jamestown. They hunted, fished, 
and raised a few articles of food. Some of them were busied 

1 Houses built in that style of architecture are called colonial. In 
England they are called Georgian, because built in the time of King 
George I or George II. The English Georgian houses wejre. corcwnonly 
of brick, while the colonial houses were often of wood. 

97 



9 8 



HOW THE COLON I SIS LIVED 



with the fur trade, which was no longer carried on in the 
older settlements. 

Differences between the Colonies. — The colonies also 
differed from one another, because of differences in climate 
or in the nature of the soil. In South Carolina rice, and 
later indigo and cotton, could be raised. In Virginia the 
main crop was tobacco. Both rice and tobacco were usually 
cultivated on large plantations. Farther north the soil and 



*&-ir~- 




■■■ v 



• /■UhIIIMIM - I 




Colonial or Georgian Hoi se 



** J£0£ 1 ' 



climate were not suited to such crops. The land was divided 
into small farms, and corn, wheat, oats, and beans were 
raised. The fanners lived in villages. In the South the 
people were not usually grouped in villages, except that the 
cabins of servants or slaves stood not far from the planter's 
house. 

What the Colonists did not have. — Many tilings now 
considered necessary, such as mat dies, kerosene, gas, elec- 
tricity, and telephones, the colonists did not have. Neither 
did the Europeans of that time have them, for they had not 
been invented. The ordinary settlers were without many 
things then common in Europe, but the planters and mer- 
chants often lived like well-to-do Europeans. 



FARMING IN THE COLONIES 



99 



Open fire-places served for both heating and cooking. 
Fires were carefully banked with ashes to keep them from 
going out, for if they went out the settler would be obliged 
to seek live coals at the house of a neighbor. Churches 
were not heated. People sometimes carried foot- warmers 
to church and kept on their hats, great-coats, and mittens 
during the service. 

The better houses were lighted by candles ; in the others 
pine-knot torches were used. Frequently the light from the 




A Colonial Kitchen Fire-Place 



fire-place was enough. Rich people had lamps in which 
sperm oil was burned. These were lighted only on impor- 
tant occasions. 

Farming in the Colonies. — The colonists were mostly 
farmers or planters. Methods of farming used nowadays 
were unheard of even in Europe. The English or European 
farmer managed his land as his forefathers had for a thou- 
sand years. He knew that land, like everything else, wore 
out. He did not understand of what elements soils are com- 
posed, and what must be put into them each year in order 
to obtain large crops. He tried to keep the land in good 




ioo HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 

condition by allowing it to lie uncultivated or fallow every 
third year, believing that it would rest and regain its strength. 
He tried what is called rotation of crops, that is, planting 
different crops, as the years came around, on the same piece 
of land. But he did not understand, as does the farmer of 
today, what crops serve this purpose best. 

Settlers in America had one advantage — there was 
plenty of land. After a field became worn out they could 

plow up another, or move 
to a region where the 
soil was rich. The crops 
raised in the North did not 
exhaust the soil quickly, 
but planters in the South 
S. discovered that new fields 

must often be found for 
tobacco. 

\ Moke Common Colonial Home Farming tools were sim- 

ple and rude. Machinery 
had not been invented. The plow, mostly of wood, scratched 
a shallow furrow. A scythe or even a sickle was used to 
harvest grain. Threshing was done by a hand-flail or by 
the treading of horses or oxen on a hard floor. After the 
grain was beaten from the stalk, it was thrown into the air 
against the wind to blow out the chaff, and was finally passed 
through sieves. 

Plantations. — Farming on the great plantations of the 
South was very different. Some plantations contained many 
thousand acres. The work of plowing, planting, hoeing, and 
gathering tobacco was done at first by indentured servants. 
In the eighteenth century it was done mostly by slaves. As 
slaves were ignorant, an overseer for every twenty negroes 
was necessary. The profits were often large. But the 
method was ruinous, because no attempt was made to put 
back into the soil what the tobacco plants were steadily 
taking out. After a time the fields were " dead." Rice 
growing on the plantations of South Carolina was not so 



HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES 



IOT 



profitable, because expenses were greater. Low, wet fields 
were needed, and the laborer must often stand in water or 
mud. The sun was hot, and malaria was a common disease. 
If slaves sickened and died, planters lost heavily. In the 
Piedmont region of the South the farms were often small, 
and the crops like those raised in the North. 

Household Industries. — Much was done on farms and 
plantations besides raising crops. Clothing, utensils, and 
household supplies must be prepared. The farmer's house 
was a workshop. Roads were few and poor. Rivers and 
the ocean were the natural highways. Little trade went on 
between the settlements. This was not the only reason for 




Carrying Tobacco to the Wharf in Virginia 

household industries. In England and Europe many trades 
were still carried on in homes or in shops connected with 
them. There were no factories, for machinery and power 
to run it had not been invented. The English weaver got 
his thread or yarn from merchants, wove cloth at home, and 
sold it to the merchant. This was called the " domestic sys- 
tem." In the colonies the women spun the yarn, often wove 
the cloth, and cut and finished the clothing for their families. 
Spinning wheels were found in every home. In Massachu- 
setts in 1656 every family was required by law to teach its 
girls to spin. Each woman was expected to spin three 
pounds of yarn, cotton or wool, every week for thirty weeks 
of the year. If she failed she might be fined. 

Men made many things with ax and jack-knife. Plows 
and harrows were mostly of wood. Boys whittled butter 



HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 



paddles for the dairy, or box traps and " figure-four " 
traps for catching animals. 

Many things which the planter needed were made by 
slaves, but other things he obtained in exchange for his rice 
or tobacco. The ships which came from England for these 

brought costly clothing, cr< >ek- 
ery, pictures, and furniture 
The northern settler was also 
eager to buy English goods. 
His trouble was to find enough 
that the English merchants 
wanted in exchange. In those 
days neither England nor 
any other European country 
needed to buy food of America. 
At first the settlers had furs 
to sell, but by and by most 
of the fur-bearing animals 
were killed or driven inland. 
explained in the quaint style 
of his time the difficulties of the New Englanders, whose 
delight, said he, "is to wear English manufactures." "They 
have no silver mines, nothing to send but pitch, tar, tur- 
pentine, and ships, which would go but a little way toward 




Spinning Wheel and Colonial 
Loom 

An English writer in 1720 




oden Plow, Harrow, wn Pork 



clothing such a number of people." And yet, said he, they 
make " a shift to scrape up about C 150,000 to pay for the 

g Is they buy of us." 

Work in Shops and Mills. — While many things were made 
in the homes, others wire manufactured by master workmen 



WORK IN SHOPS AND MILLS 



103 




Tinder Box, Flint, and Steel 



and their apprentices, or learners, in shops and small mills. 
The shops of weavers were almost as common in the colonies 
as those of blacksmiths. Weavers often traveled about the 
colonies as harvest hands do today. On the plantations in 
the South some slave was 
usually taught the trade 
of the weaver. Most of 
the shoes of the colonists 
and other leather goods 
were made in America. 
The Massachusetts gov- 
ernment made laws to 
prevent the waste of hides. 
Shoe-makers^ who came 
from England taught the 
farmers to make shoes. The farmer spent part of the long 
winter days in making shoes for his family, but other men 
gave all their time to making shoes for sale. Soon after 
Lynn was settled it had many shoe-makers, working in their 
homes or in small shops. Shoes made in 
Massachusetts were sold in the other 
colonies. 

Nearly every town had its small flour 
mill and saw mill, run by water-power. 
A small amount of iron was made in the 
colonies. The first furnaces used ore 
known as " bog iron," found in swampy 
regions. Later better ore was found in 
the hills of Connecticut, New York, Penn- 
sylvania, and Virginia. 

Many farmers, especially in New Eng- 
land, made nails and tacks and simple tools 
to sell to their neighbors. A hammer, an 
anvil, and a small furnace in the chimney-corner of the 
living-room formed the outfit necessary for this, which was 
another of the home or domestic industries of colonial times. 
But the greater part of the iron and steel used in the colonies 




Mould for Mak 
ing Candles 



104 



HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 



came into them from England in the shape of tools and 
household implements. 

Colonial Adventurers upon the Seas. — The colonists, 
especially of the northern colonics, early began to build 
ships, for which they had an abundance of the best timber 
at their very doors. As many as seventy ships were launched 
in a single year in New England ports. American ships 
were found on every sea. Many sailors, from New England 

in particular, were en- 
gaged in fishing for cod 
and mackerel off the 
coast or on the Banks of 
Newfoundland. Sailors 
learned to capture the 
sperm whale and to ob- 
tain oil from the blubber. 
Towns like Marblehead, 
Nantucket, and New 
Bedford were famous for 
their success in whaling. 
Trade with the West 
Indies. — The northern 
colonics found trade with 
the West Indies very prof- 
itable. Planters in Bar- 
bados, Jamaica, and other 
English islands, gained such large profits from raising sugar 
thai they did not take time to raise food or cut the timber 
they needed. They preferred to buy such tilings of the 
Atlantic coast settlers. Hundreds of ships went from New 
England, New York, and the Delaware River, loaded with 
horses, oxen, sheep, hogs, fish, corn, peas, beans, oats, and 
flour. Planters sometimes bought house-frames all ready to 
set up, and slaves and hoops for sugar barrels. The northern 
ship-masters took in return sugar, molasses, and usually some 
money. The money they found useful in buying in England 
articles which were not made in America. 




.:-._j^.-5^.5.^t'.^'>->---' : ^'^^ 



A Colonial Iron Furnace 

Cannon were cast here during the Revolution 
for the Continental Army 



MONEY 



105 



Money. — Money is needed to carry on business. Those 
who have something to exchange cannot readily find the per- 
son who wants it and who has something they are willing to 
receive. For this reason the first Plymouth colonists used 
polished shells and the Virginians used tobacco as mone}\ 
English coins did not remain long in the colonies, chiefly 
because the colonists always bought more of the English mer- 
chants than they sold to them and were obliged to pay the 
difference in coin 
Spanish 
were the 
common. 
1728 the 
Spanish 

lar," with its 
halves and quar- 
ters, and Portu- 
guese coins were 
widely used. 



coins 

most 

After 

new 

" dol- 



'mmm 






« the Colony of 
JEi New-Tori, this Bill shall 

fpfl pafs current iPyT rofc FIVE 
|J;j POUNDS. ES New York. 
the Second Day or April , One 
(S^ll Thoufand Seven Hundred and Fifty 

!-£nl 



[loo*.]tf>5£*l /a j " rx"? "Tis Death to counterfeit ihh SILL. 

New York Colonial Paper Money 




Paper Money. — During the wars with the French, Mas- 
sachusetts, having no money in its treasury to pay the sol- 
diers, ordered paper money, or promises to pay, to be given 
them. Massachusetts frequently chose this easy way of 
paying its debts. The same thing was done by most of the 
other colonies. The difficulty was that the promises to pay 
were not kept, and that it took at various times from seven 
to twenty-six dollars in paper to obtain one dollar in coin. 
The English government attempted to stop the issue of such 
money, but without much success. 

Colonial Schools. — One consequence of the lack of money 
was inability to provide good schools. In several colonies 
the legislatures had voted that schools should be established 
by all towns containing a certain number of families. Mas- 
sachusetts threatened to fine towns which did not obey the 
law. Twice the fines were doubled, but it was easier to pay 
them than to support teachers. In Pennsylvania parents 
who did not teach their children to read and write were 



io6 



HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 



threatened with a fine of £5. The growth of schools in the 
South was still slower, because the inhabitants were more 
scattered. In Virginia a few private schools were founded 
with money left by prosperous planters. Sons of planters 
were sent to England for their education or were taught by 
private teachers. Public schools in the colonies were only 

for boys. Girls some- 
times learned to read 
and write in private 
schools. 

Colleges. — Harvard 
remained the only college 
until just at the close of 
the seventeenth century, 
when a college was 
founded in Virginia, and 
named William and Mary 
for the monarchs then 
reigning in England. A 
few years later, in 1701, 
a college was established 
in Connecticut and 
named after Elihu Yale, a 
wealthy merchant who gave it a large sum. Soon other colleges 
were founded — at Princeton in New Jersey, at Providence 
in Rhode Island, and at Hanover in New Hampshire. Ben- 
jamin Franklin was one of the founders of an " Academy " 
at Philadelphia, which later became the University of Penn- 
sylvania. It differed from the other colleges in making 
the study of the English language as important as the study 
of Latin and Greek. 

The main purpose of the colleges was to train clergymen. 
For this reason older students in Yale were required to " read 
some part of the Old Testament out of Hebrew into Greek 
in the morning and to turn some part of the New Testament 
out of English or Latin into Greek at t he time of the evening 
recitation." Dartmouth College was originally intended 




A Colonial Schooj 



PRINTING 107 

to train Indians to teach Christianity to their tribes. In 
Franklin's " Academy " other needs of the community were 
equally remembered. However, a young man wishing to 
study law or medicine had to do so in the office of a lawyer 
or a doctor, and not at a college. 

Printing. — Most of the books in the colonies were brought 
from England and Europe, but a few books and pamphlets 
were printed in America. A printing press was set up in 
Massachusetts as early as 1638. Newspapers were rare. 
This is not surprising, because there were none in Eng- 




College of William and Mary 
After a drawing made about 1740 

land until 1622. The Boston News Letter, begun in 1704, 
was the first in America. One was started in New York 
in 1725, and another, by Franklin, in Philadelphia, eight 
years later. All these papers looked like small leaflets and 
were published once a week. 

Almanacs were very popular. One which Franklin pub- 
lished was called Poor Richard'' s Almanac. It contained, 
besides the calendar and list of eclipses, many bits of history, 
proverbs, and practical advice. Books and newspapers were 
costly, but everybody could have Poor Richard's Almanac. 
Franklin's rhymes and jokes and quaint sayings taught his 
readers many things, above all to be frugal and industrious. 
One of his sayings was, " Sloth like Rust consumes faster 
than Labor wears " ; another, everywhere familiar, " Early 



io8 



HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 



to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and 
wise." 

Language in the Colonies. — Though many of the colonists 
came from the continent of Europe, English was the language 
spoken almost everywhere. It soon began 
to differ somewhat from the English spoken 
in England, because the colonists invented 
names for things in America which they had 
not seen in England or the names of which 
they had forgotten. For example, they 
called birds after their colors, like " black- 
bird " or " bluebird," or after their cry, like 
"catbird "and "mocking-bird." From the 
Indians they borrowed many names, such as 
moose, chipmunk, pecan, 
tobacco, canoe, ham- 
mock. The Indian names 
for rivers and lakes were 
often kept. 

Religion. — The colo- 
nists were very religious. 
Virginia, Maryland, and 
the Carolinas adopted 
the Episcopal or English 
Church. Every one was 
obliged to pay for its ser- 
vices. Maryland had originally been planned as a refuge for 
the Roman Catholics, but the Protestants in time outnum- 
bered them twelve to one. In Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut most people were Congregationalists. Baptists were nu- 
merous in Rhode Island and North Carolina, and Quakers in 
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Wherever the Scotch- 
Irish settled, Presbyterian churches were founded. 

Superstitions. — The colonists had many strange notions, 
now called superstitions. One was a belief in witchcraft, 
which they brought over from England and Europe. There 
the belief in witches was widespread. If butter was slow 




Old South Church, Boston 



AMUSEMENTS IN THE COLONIES 



109 



Poor Richard, 1733. 



A N 



in coming when cream was churned, the colonist thought 
that witches were in it and must be driven out by dropping 
a red-hot horse-shoe into 
the cream. If pigs were 
sick they were supposed 
to be bewitched. 

Horse-shoes or broom- 
sticks were often placed 
over doorways to keep 
out witches. To be a 
witch, that is, possessed 
by an evil spirit, was re- 
garded as worse than a 
misfortune — it was a 
crime. Many hundreds 
had been put to death 
in Europe as witches. 
Salem, Massachusetts, 
gained an unhappy fame 
because of a panic about 
witches which seized the 
village early in 1692. 
Certain girls, troubled 
with what is now called 
hysteria, said they were 
tormented by witches, 

and accused neighbors, '" •*•«.- •m.u » — »„ 

chiefly poor, ignorant, 
old women. Before the 
panic was over twenty 
persons had been found guilty by the courts and executed. 
This superstition lingered a long time after the persecutions 
at Salem ceased. 

Amusements in the Colonies. — The colonists had much 
hard work to do, but they found time to play. When corn- 
husking season came, or the frame of a house was to be raised, 
the neighbors gathered to help. As soon as the work was 



Almanack 

For the Year of Chrift 

l 7 3 3> 

Being the Firft after LEAP YEAR: 

And mattes J! nee the Creation Years 

By the Account of the Ealtern Greeks 7241 

By the Latin Church, when O em. y 6932 

By Hie Computation of W.IV * 742 

By the Roman Chronology k6%2 

By the JewM Rabbies 5494 

Wherein ts eotrtained 
The Lunations, Eclipfes. Judgment of 

the Weather, Spring Tides, Planets Motions & 
mutual AfpeQs, Sun and Moon's Riling and Set- 
ting, Length of Days, Time of High Water, 
Pairs, Courts', and obfcrvable Days 

Fitted tothe Latitude of Forty Degrees, 
and a Meridian of Five Hours Weft from London, 
but may without fenfihlc Error, ferve alJ the ad- 
jacent Places, even from Newfoundland to South- 
Carolina. 



By R1CHJKD SJUNDERS,?hilom. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

Piintcd and fold by B. FRANKLW, at the New 
Printing Office near the Marker. 



The Third IroprdSon. 
Reduced Facsimile of the Title- 
Page of " Poor Richard's Almanac " 



no HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED 

done all sat down to tables loaded with good things. Some- 
times the men joined in a wolf hunt. The chase was always 
exciting and ended in the destruction of a dangerous pest. 

The planters enjoyed horse-racing and fox-hunting. The 
Dutch introduced several healthful sports — bowling, skat- 
ing, and sleigh riding. In Boston the boys kicked balls 
back and forth, somewhat after the manner of football. 
They had many other games such as boys play nowadays. 

In New York and the southern colonies an occasional 
band of actors from England played in the chief towns. 
The Puritans, like the Puritans in England, were opposed to 
the theater, and would not allow plays in their towns. 

Dress. — The well-to-do colonists followed English fash- 
ions. The planters and merchants, especially, tried to dress 
like the London merchants with whom they dealt. On 
Sundays and holidays the men wore wigs of long, powdered 
hair, tied in a cue, three-cornered hats covered with lace, 
coats of plush or broadcloth, often in bright colors, em- 
broidered vests, tight-fitting knee-breeches, long silk stock- 
ings, and pointed shoes with silver buckles. The Puritans 
and Quakers dressed more simply. Indeed, few of the 
colonists could afford finery, and most of them dressed in 
homespun or leather or deerskin. 

Questions 

1. How did the appearance of the older settlements change? 
Where were colonists to be found who were living as the earlier settlers 
had lived ? 

2. Why did the colonies differ greatly in occupations and manner 
of life? In what ways did they differ? 

3. Is it strange that the colonists did not have many things which 
we now have ? Name some of the things that we use every day which 
they did not have. How were the houses heated and lighted? 

4. Why were the colonists not as careful in farming as farmers to- 
day? 

5. How was a plantation managed? What did the overseer do? 
Who were- the laborers on plantations ? What did they raise i In what 
part of the South was fanning like that in the North? 

6. Why did the colonists d/> so many tilings in their own houses 



QUESTIONS 



III 



instead of doing them in factories as today? What work was done in 
the homes as household industries ? 

7. What work was carried on in shops and mills ? At what other 
occupations than farming did the farmers sometimes work ? 

8. What profitable trade did the northern colonies find ? 

9. What did the colonists use as money ? Why was colonial paper 
money not a good kind of money ? 

10. Why were the colonial schools few in number? Why did the 
southern colonies have even fewer schools than the northern colonies ? 

1 1 . What colleges were founded in colo- 
nial days ? What was the main object of 
the people in founding colleges ? In what 
way did Franklin's Academy at Philadelphia 
differ from the others ? 

12. Why was Poor Richard's Almanac so 
widely read and so popular? What useful 
things did it teach the people? 

13. How did the English language in the 
colonies differ from English as spoken in 
England ? 

Exercises 




1. Visit a museum and examine all arti- 
cles which illustrate colonial life, and tell 
about these in class. 

2. Gather pictures of colonial houses, 
money, farm tools, furniture, etc. 

3. Make out a list of the household or 
home industries carried on by men and women in colonial times 
derscore any which are still found in the homes. 

4. Collect examples of superstitions or strange notions still known, 
whether believed or not. 

5. Make two lists of amusements — one for colonial times, another 
of those common in some part of the United States today. 



Franklin's Printing 
Press 

In the custody of the Smith- 
sonian Institution 



Un- 



CHAPTER XI 
HOW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED 

Transplanting English Government to the Colonies. — 
The English colonists came from a country where their 
fathers had won many rights of self-government. It was 
natural that they should transplant to their new homes 
the methods with which they had become familiar. Bach 
colony, therefore, became in government a little England. 

Rights of Englishmen. — In England the people had com- 
pelled the kings to keep the promises made in Magna Chart a 
and in other charters of liberty. The most important of 
these promises were that persons accused should be tried 
before juries chosen from among the men of the community, 
and that those who were convicted should not suffer cruel 
or unusual punishments. Other promises declared that the 
people should be able to petition for a redress of grievances, 
and should be asked to pay only those taxes which their 
representatives in parliament had voted. All these were 
thought of as the rights of Englishmen. These also the 
colonists claimed as their rights. For one thing the colonists 
soon had courts and conducted trials, with juries and wit- 
nesses, as this was done at home. To some of the colonics 
the king gave charters, which, like Magna Charta, contained 
a list of rights. In 1641 the people of Massachusetts drew 
up a "body of liberties" which included the rights their 
fellow countrymen had won and others, like being governed 
by persons of their own choosing. 

Local Government. — In England local affairs were man- 
aged partly by the officers of the counties and partly by those 
of the parishes into which the counties were divided. The 
parish was formed originally to take care of church questions, 
but it afterwards dealt with other matters. In New Eng- 



PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT 



113 



land the parish became the town, and the parish meeting 
the town meeting. Here were managed the affairs of the 
church and the school, but also such things as the common 
fields, roads, ferries, bridges, and fences. At the meeting 
were chosen the town officials, — selectmen, constables, 
fence-viewers, field-drivers, pound-keepers for stray cattle, 
and ti thing-men to arrest loafers and Sabbath breakers and 
to keep order among the boys at church. 

In the southern colonies, including Maryland, as many 
of the settlers lived on large farms or plantations, nothing 
like the town meeting was convenient. Instead the governor 




Great Seal Granted to the New England Colonies in 1685 



of the colony appointed several justices of the peace and a 
sheriff who managed the affairs of each county. But the 
care of the church and the poor was left to the parish as in 
England. 

The middle colonies, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania and Delaware, used a mixture of the town system of 
New England and the county system of the southern colo- 
nies. The New England town became in the middle colo- 
nies the township. 

Provincial Government. — Legislatures existed in every 
colony. They were modeled after the English Parliament. 
At the head of the colonial government was a governor. 
In Connecticut and Rhode Island he was chosen by the 



I II 



HOW THE COLONIES WKRK GOVERNED 



people, in Pennsylvania ' and Maryland he was appointed 
by the proprietor, and in the other colonies by the king. 
Massachusetts originally had the right to choose a governor, 
but lost it during the reign of Charles II. Laws adopted by 
the colonial legislatures might be vetoed by the governor, 
or disapproved by the government in England. For the 
king or his ministers in England to veto colonial laws seemed 




Faneuil Hall, Boston, in Colonial Times 

"The Cradle of Liberty" 

The gift of Peter Faneuil, merchant, id Boston in 17.10 for town meetings 

and a market house 

unfair to the colonists. The king had ceased since 1707 to 
veto acts of parliament. If parliament could make laws 
for Englishmen at home, why should not the colonial as- 
semblies do the same for Englishmen in the colonies? 
-Legislatures and Governors. — The legislatures of New 
York and Massachusetts had many disputes with the gover- 
nors. One Xew York governor spent upon his own pleasures 
money which the legislature had raised for new fortifications. 
The legislature then appointed a treasurer to take charge of 

•Delaware had the same governor as Pennsylvania. 



ATTACKS ON COLONIAL CHARTERS 



ii5 



expenditures, and was not very generous in the amounts 
which it voted. The governor threatened to have the taxes 
levied on the colony by parliament. The legislature finally 
declared that only the representatives chosen by the people 
had the right to vote away their money. This was the same 
language which parliament had used a hundred years before 
in its disputes with James I and Charles I. 

The legislators thought that a governor would be more 
likely to listen to their wishes if he depended upon them 




Reduced Facsimile of the Heading, Signature, and Seal 
of the Massachusetts Charter of 1 628-1 629 

every year for his salary. In this practice they were simply 
following the example set by parliament in dealing with 
kings. One Massachusetts governor refused to accept the 
sums voted to him as salary because his orders from the 
home government declared that he must insist upon a 
permanent, rather than an annual, settlement of his salary. 
Attacks on Colonial Charters. — At different times plans 
were proposed in England to make the colonies more de- 
pendent upon the will of officials appointed by the home 
government. In 1684 the charter x of Massachusetts was 

1 A charter described the rights of colonists, for example, their right 
to choose a governor or to select representatives to their assembly. 



n6 HOW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED 

taken away. The people of Connecticut feared the same 
misfortune. There is a story that when the royal agent 
went before the general assembly of Connecticut to demand 
the charter, the debate was purposely prolonged until late 
in the evening. Finally the candles were blown out, and 
when they were relighted the charter had disappeared. 
Some one had carried it off and hidden it in the hollow of an 
oak, known thereafter as the Charter Oak. 

After James II became king he made Edmund Andros 
governor of all the colonies north and east of the Delaware 
River ; that is, New Jersey, New York, and all New Eng- 
land. Andros was given power to make laws, raise taxes, 
and settle disputes in his own court. James treated the 
liberties of Englishmen in the colonies with the same con- 
tempt with which he treated their rights in England. The 
revolution of 1688 soon sent the king into exile. 

In 1689, when the people of Massachusetts learned what 
was taking place in England, they seized Andros, threw him 
into Castle William in Boston harbor, and then sent him 
back to England. Two years later Massachusetts received 
a new charter, but one which did not permit the people to 
choose their governor. Plymouth was at this time united 
with Massachusetts. 

Customs Officials. — There were many other officers in 
the colonies besides the governors who were appointed by 
the king. The most unpopular were those whose duty it 
was to enforce the trade laws, or Navigation Acts as they 
were called. These, like modern tariffs, were intended in part 
to make England stronger than her rivals. To accomplish 
this trade laws treated the colonies as places from which to 
obtain materials not produced at home. If the colonies were 
in the Far East, it was spices, drugs, and precious stones. If 
they were in the West, it was first of all gold and silver, 
next furs, then ships, naval stores, sugar, and tobacco. To 
pay for these English merchants were supposed to send to the 
colonies clothing, furniture, and tools, indeed everything 
that the colonists had learned to want in their former homes. 



CUSTOMS OFFICIALS 



117 



The Navigation Laws did not permit foreign ships to trade 
in colonial ports, nor allow any ship whether English, colonial, 
or foreign, to take certain kinds of colonial products directly 
to foreign ports. Tobacco, indigo, and other dye stuffs were 
so restricted ; sugar, rice, naval stores, and a few other products 
were on the list for a part of the time. The English laws, 
however, favored the col- 
onists by making it to the 
advantage of Englishmen 
to use the sugar and to- 
bacco of their own colo- 
nies, and by allowing colo- 
nial ships to engage in any 
trade that English ships 
could follow. Merchants, 
both English and Ameri- 
can, often found it more 
profitable to take these 
products to foreign mar- 
kets, and did so in spite 
of the laws against it. 
Such lawbreakers, called 
smugglers, were common. The Old State House, Boston 

The Colonists, especially Erected in 1748- 1749 on the site occupied since 
the New Englanders, 1657 by the Tower House 

found trade with the French and Spanish West Indies 
profitable because there they could buy sugar and molasses 
cheaper than in the English West Indies. When the Eng- 
lish West Indian plantation owners found that the colonists 
were buying so much sugar and molasses from the French, 
they complained to the home government. Parliament 
tried in 1733 to stop the trade by putting high taxes 
on such products brought into the northern colonies. 
Then colonial shipmasters smuggled sugar and molasses 
as well as other forbidden objects. The West Indian 
planters soon obtained the privilege of sending their sugar to 
foreign markets in Europe, and ceased to care so much 




n8 



IK)\V THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED 



about the colonial market. The Sugar Act was soon ig- 
nored by all. 

When juries of colonists would not convict those who dis- 
obeyed these trade laws, the English government set up 
what were called " Admiralty Courts," ' where a judge 
appointed by the king decided without a jury whether the 
person accused was guilty. This made the laws all the more 
unpopular, so many men thought it was not wrong to dis- 
obey them. But even in its 
navigation laws the English 
government was more libera] 
than any other government of 
those days. Not until the 
next century, however, did 
English statesmen begin to 
think of the colonics as a 
Greater Britain or an expan- 
sion of England whose people 
should have all the rights and 
privileges of Englishmen at 
home. 

Punishments. — In the pun- 
ishment of ordinary offenses 
or crimes the colonial courts 
were less harsh than the English courts. In England about 
200 crimes were punished with death. Among these were 
sheep stealing, pocket picking, even if the amount was no 
more than a shilling, and stealing an article worth five shil- 
lings from a shop. In the colonies many crimes were also 
punished with death. Executions were public, and hand- 
bills were often circulated explaining the crime and holding 
up the fate of the criminal as a warning to evil-doers. 

The purpose of several of the more ordinary punishments 
was the disgrace of the wrong-doer in the sight of his neigh- 
bors. The whipping-post, the pillory, and the stocks were 
in common use. The maker of the first stocks in Boston 
1 Special courts to try offenses against the shipping laws. 




Whipping- Post 



COLONIAL INVENTIONS IN GOVERNMENT 



119 



was sentenced to sit in them an hour because the magistrates 
thought he charged too much. A man in North Carolina 
who had stolen five dollars' worth of goods was sentenced 
to thirty-nine lashes on the bare back. 

Colonial Inventions in Government. — In some respects 
the colonists improved on the forms of government in the 
homeland. There nothing so useful as the New England 
town meeting for the training of the people existed. Thomas 
Jefferson thought it " the wisest in- 
vention ever devised by the wit of 
man for the perfect exercise of self- 
government and for its preservation." 
As the colonies spread westward new 
towns and new counties were formed 
and allowed to send representatives to 
the colonial assemblies. So it came 
about that all parts of a colony were 
represented. 

Colonial Elections. — In another 
respect the colonists followed more 
closely the customs of the old country. 
Only land owners and taxpayers voted 
in the elections and took part in the 
town meetings. Clerks, artisans, and 
unskilled laborers were not voters. Usually the fact that a 
man was a Catholic or a Jew or that he had no religion was 
a sufficient reason why he should not be allowed to vote. As 
great numbers of those who had the right did not take the 
trouble to vote, colonial elections were controlled by the 
larger property holders. The offices fell to a few leading 
families. The day in which all men and women should have 
a share in government was still far in the future. 

French and Spanish Colonies. — The English colonies, 
notwithstanding their disputes with their governors or other 
officials, had a great many more rights of self-government 
than either the Spanish or the French. As ordinary French- 
men had little or no share in the government at home, it is 




Pillory 



120 IloW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED 

not surprising that they had none in the colonies. Each 
colony had a governor to command the soldiers and an intend- 
ani to manage affairs. The governor, inlcndant, and judges 
were appointed by the king. There were no juries. The 
Spanish colonists had town councils or cabildos, but no 
assemblies representing a whole colony. 

Questions 

1. What rights did the colonists claim? What changes were made 
in adapting the English parish to New England? 

2. What did the New England town meeting do? What were the 
names of the chief officers of a town? Why was there no town meeting 

in the southern colonies? What took the place of it there? Where 
did the colonists get their ideas about local government? 

3. Describe the general government of a colony. Who appointed 
the governors? Who chose the members of the legislatures or assem- 
blies? Were the colonial legislatures completely free to make laws for 
the colonies ? Why did the colonists think the veto of their laws by the 
English ministers unjust ? 

4. What disputes did the legislatures and governors have over the 
government of the colonics? How did the legislators manage to hold 
the governors in check? What words did the representatives of the 
colonists use which Englishmen had used in quarrels with James I and 
Charles I ? 

5. What officials of England were concerned with the government 
of the colonies? What additional blunder did England make in the 
management of colonial affairs ? 

6. What colonies lost their charters at one time or another? Why 
was it a disadvantage for a colony to lose its charter? 

7. Which were more severe, the colonial or the English laws for pun- 
ishing crime? Which had the more liberties, the English, Erench, or 
Spanish colonic 

8. What improvements did the colonists make in the English forms 
of government ? In what did they follow closely English customs ? 

Exercises 

1. Learn about the present local government in some part of the 
United Stat. . Does this resemble most closely the local government 
in the northern, middle, or southern colonies? 

.'. Find out what town or city officers now perform the duties of 
the officers of an early New England town. 

3. Make out a list of the officers, appointed by England, mentioned 
in this chapter, who had anything to do with governing the colonies. 



CHAPTER XII 



CONQUEST OF THE FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 

Crossing the Appalachian Barrier. — Before 1750 there 
were few English settlers beyond the great Appalachian 
barrier. Traders from the Carolinas and Georgia had ven- 
tured westward as far as the Mississippi. Traders from 
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York were beginning to 
find their way across the mountains to the banks of the Ohio. 
As the population of the colonies on the coast increased, it 




A Frontier Post on Lake Ontario in 1730 
Oswego, N. Y. After an old print 

was certain that emigrants would follow in the footsteps of 
the traders. A vast unoccupied region stretched between 
the Appalachians and the French villages in the Illinois 
country. Moreover, the French settlements were small, 
containing altogether about 500 inhabitants. 

Western Claims. — The region between the Appalachians 
and the Mississippi was not considered either by England 
or by France as vacant. The French claimed that their 
territory extended eastward to the mountains, while the 
English declared that they owned the whole country as far 



122 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 



as the Pacific. According to the original charters of Virginia, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, their lands extended to the 
South Sea, which was supposed to be not far distant. When 
it was discovered how far away the Pacific Ocean was, the 
colonists simply lengthened their claims. 1 After all, the 



WWnW^ 




soo too rco 



The territory occupied by the English is clotted 

question whether the region beyond the mountains belonged 

to the French or to the English had to be decided by force. 

French and English Rivalry. — In 1749 the French and 

English were each wide awake to what the other was doing. 

1 When the Carolinas and Georgia received charters the Pacific 
Ocean was made their western border, although the royal government 
knew by that time how distant the Pacific Ocean was. 



THE OHIO COMPANY 123 

They had just finished a war into which they had been drawn 
as allies of Frederick II of Prussia and Maria Theresa of 
Austria. They had fought in India and America as well as 
in Europe. 

The French governor of Canada and the English in Vir- 
ginia now took steps looking toward the occupation of the 
Ohio country. The French crossed from Lake Erie to Lake 
Chautauqua, and from there to the Allegheny River. They 
floated past the spot where Pittsburgh now stands, and 
went on as far as the Great Miami, returning to Lake Erie 
by the Maumee. Wherever they saw English traders, they 
warned them to leave the country. 




Cumberland and the Narrows of Will's Mountain, Maryland 

The natural passage or gateway through the first range of mountains on the 

route to the Ohio country 

The Ohio Company. — While this expedition was com- 
pleting its work, some Virginians, among them Lawrence 
and Augustine Washington, brothers of George Washington, 
formed a land company. The company was granted half a 
million acres south of the Ohio, between the Monongahela 
and the Kanawha rivers, on the condition of settling a 
hundred families in the region and of building and holding 
a fort. 

One of the best routes from Virginia into the Ohio country 
lay along the upper Potomac to Cumberland, Maryland, 
where Will's Creek breaks through the mountains. This 
route crossed the ridges into the valley of the Youghiogheny 
or of the Monongahela. In 1753 the Ohio Company pre- 
pared to construct a fort near where the Allegheny and the 
Monongahela join to form the Ohio. The spot was ad- 



124 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMI-RICA 



mirable as a half-way station and a gateway through which 

emigrants might pass on to the region lower down on the 
Ohio. At the same time a few daring Virginia families took 
up lands along the Monongahela. 

Advance of the French. — Meanwhile Governor Du- 
qucsne of Canada sent a thousand men to the Ohio country, 
ordering them to build forts and hold the mountain passes 
against English intruders. They built a log fort at Presque 




The Ohio Country and the New French Forts 

Showing especially the rivers, mountain barrier, and new I'rem h posts 

Isle, near Erie, cut a road southward to French Creek, 
and seized an English trading post at the junction of French 
Creek and the Allegheny River. They were now only 
1 20 miles from the Forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh is 
situatn 1. 

The news alarmed the Ohio Company, which had not 
yet built its fort. The governor of Virginia decided to send 
a messenger to warn the French that they had entered 
territory which was not theirs, and to demand thai they 
withdraw. For the perilous journey Major George Washing- 



FORT DUQUESNE 



125 



ton was finally chosen. Although only twenty-one, he 
had already been several years on the Virginia frontier, en- 
gaged in surveying. He was a skilled woodsman and a 
hardy traveler. The death of his brother Lawrence had 
brought him an estate of 2500 acres beautifully situated 
on the Potomac. Such a plantation gave him a position 
of influence in the 
colony. 

Washington started 
with several companions 
in October, 1753. Part 
of the way his route lay 
through trackless forests. 
The rivers were swollen 
and the ground was cov- 
ered by the early winter 
snows. The journey took 
six weeks. Washington 
found the French com- 
mander at Fort Le Bceuf , 
near the northern boun- 
dary of Pennsylvania. 
The response which he 
carried back to Governor 
Dinwiddie declared that 
the French king was 
master of all the country 
west of the Allegheny 
Mountains. 

Fort Duquesne. — A conflict was now certain. A body of 
Virginians was hurried forward to the Forks of the Ohio 
to build a fort. The French, not to be outwitted, descended 
the Allegheny River in canoes, drove away the workmen, 
and constructed a strong fort. They named it Fort Du- 
quesne in honor of the governor of Canada. Meanwhile a 
large force of Virginians had been raised to occupy this 
position. The advance, commanded by Washington, met 




Washington's Road 

Near where he met the French under Jumon- 

ville. As it looks today 



126 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 

a party of Frenchmen in the woods on the western slope of 
the mountains. A fight followed, in which the French 
claimed that the Virginians fired the first shots. Jumonville, 
the leader of the French, and 20 of his men were killed, and 
the rest surrendered. Soon afterwards Washington was 
attacked near the same spot at Fort Necessity, which he 
had hastily constructed. It was his turn to surrender, but 
the French permitted him to march back to Virginia on the 
understanding that no attempt should be made within a year 
to establish settlements west of the mountains. 

The Seven Years' War. — This was the beginning of the 
French and Indian War. In Europe, France and England 
were still at peace. Indeed, war was not declared for two 
years. It then became part of a struggle in which almost all 
European countries were engaged, and which was called the 
Seven Years' War. France and Russia combined with 
Maria Theresa of Austria to take from Frederick the Great 
of Prussia the territory which he had gained in the preceding 
war. 1 England aided Frederick. This great European war 
accounts for the length of the French and Indian War in 
America. Both England and France were also fighting in 
India. The consequence was that neither could spare more 
than a small part of their troops for the conflict in America. 

The English had a navy which was larger and stronger 
than the French navy, a very important advantage in a 
struggle beyond the sea. The English had 130 battle-ships, 1 
while the French had only 63. Although the French had 
more soldiers than the English, they could not safely risk 
them on the ocean because they would probably be cap- 
tured by the English fleet. It was therefore merely a ques- 
tion of time when the French in America would be over- 
whelmed. The only chance of the French was by crushing 

1 The War of the Austrian Succession, 1 740-1 748, in which Frederick 
had conquered Silesia; called King George's War in the colonic-;. 

2 A battle-ship, or ship-of-the-line, at that time was, like other ships, 
made of wood. It ordinarily had three decks, and was armed with 
from 74 to 120 cannon. 




FRANKLIN'S PLAN OF UNION 127 

Frederick the Great, England's ally, on the Continent. But 
after a few successes they were beaten by the Prussian king. 

Indian Allies of France. — The Indians in the West took 
sides with the French. They looked upon the English be- 
yond the mountains as intruders. As English settlements 
increased, the hunting grounds were spoiled. The French 
were few in number and interfered little with Indian lands. 
The fact that many of the Indians united with the French 
explains why the war was called 
" French and Indian." 

The Albany Congress. — The 
English were afraid that the Iro- 
quois would join the western In- 
dians against them, and arranged 
a conference at Albany in the 

summer of 17154. Commissioners T 

' 0H . Device printed in Franklin s 

from several colonies were present « Pennsylvania Gazette " 
at this Albany conference or 

" Congress." They not only tried to strengthen the friendly 
attitude of the Iroquois, but also talked over plans of form- 
ing a union of the colonies. 

Franklin's Plan of Union. — Benjamin Franklin, a dele- 
gate from Pennsylvania, was one of the first to see the need 
of uniting the colonies. In the Pennsylvania Gazette, his 
newspaper, he printed a picture of a wriggling snake cut into 
pieces, with the initial letter of a colony on each piece. An 
old superstition said that if a snake was cut up and the 
pieces allowed to touch, they would knit together and the 
snake would live. Underneath the picture Franklin printed 
the words, " Join or die." He meant that the colonies must 
unite or they would perish. 

Franklin's plan was favored by the delegates at Albany, 
but was not adopted by the colonies. Few persons had any 
interest in union at that time. Moreover, some of the colo- 
nists were not alarmed, as the Virginians were, by the ad- 
vance of the French into the Ohio country. The Quakers, 
who were very influential in Pennsylvania, were opposed to 



128 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 



. i *' v'Tn' ^Nj v y " 'i K 



war of any kind, and especially a war for territory. The 
colonies south of Virginia stood in dread of the Spaniards 
or of the Indians <>n their frontier. Something greater 
than a quarrel about a frontier post at the Forks of the 
Ohio would be required to move the colonies toward union. 
Braddock's Defeat. — In 1755 the English government 
sent two regiments across the Atlantic to assist the Virgin- 
ians in seizing Fort Du- 
quesne. The expedition 
was commanded by Gen- 
eral Braddock, a soldier of 
courage and ability, but 
wholly ignorant of fighting 
in the wilderness against 
Indians and woodsmen. 
Washington was in com- 
mand of the Virginians. 

After a difficult march 
through the forest, during 
which ax-men were con- 
stantly busy cutting down 
trees in order to widen the 
trail, Braddock reached and 
crossed the Monongahela 
about eight miles above 
Fort Duqucsne. While his 
army was moving through 
a wide bushy ravine, a 
French force with many Indians suddenly attacked it on all 
Washington and the Virginians wished to scatter in 
the forest and fight behind trees in Indian Fashion, but Brad- 
dock thought such a method cowardly and tried to keep 
his men in line, after the manner of fighting in Europe. 

The result was disaster. After having four horses shot 
under him, Braddock fell mortally wounded. Washington 
lost two horses, and four times bullets tore through his 
clothes. Sixty-three out of eighty-six officers and two- 




Route of Braddock's Expedition 




WASHINGTON ON THE FRONTIER 129 

thirds of the soldiers were killed or disabled. Washington 
led the wreck of the army back to the nearest refuge. Daniel 
Boone, a young woodsman from North Carolina, was among 
the fleeing wagon drivers. 

Washington's Defense of the Frontier. — The French 
and their Indian allies now raided the frontier settlements 
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The French 
commander boasted that all these settlements were de- 
stroyed, adding that " the Indian villages are full of prisoners 
of every age. The 
enemy has lost more 
since the battle than 
on the day of his 
defeat." 

It was three years 
before another ex- Sr-a^it "^TT^ilr*^ ISHTT ""/i 

pedition was ready ^l^'^^lllir'^^'" 1 '''"" 

to start against Fort -~^ ^~~^z3f^^"% »>.,«. • ■ i^^P^H 

Duquesne. Wash- . ■■■• " 

ington did his best Pioneer Block-House in the Mononga- 

to defend the border, HELA Country 

which was nearlv The loopholes for defense ma y be seen ^^^ 

the eaves 

300 miles long. At 

the chief mountain passes he built block-houses, strength- 
ened by stockades. His hardy followers were armed with 
home-made flint-lock muskets, and carried tomahawks and 
scalping knives in their belts. They had no regular army 
uniform, but wore buck-skin hunting shirts, leggings, and 
moccasins. Washington's skill in defending the " back 
door " of the colonies gave him a greater reputation than 
that of any other colonial officer. 

The Acadians. — The English, in 1755, a ls° made an un- 
successful attempt to dislodge the French from Lake Cham- 
plain, where their presence threatened the settlements in the 
Hudson River region. Far to the northeast, in Nova Scotia, 
the English feared that the Acadians, who had remained in 
the country after the French gave it up in 1 7 1 3 , would revolt 



130 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 



and aid the French soldiers in reconquering it. Accordingly, 
they decided to " clear the whole country of such bad sub- 
jects." The English officers took lands and cattle, burned 
houses and barns, and scattered the Acadians among the 
English-speaking colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia. 
A quarter of a century later a French traveler passing 
through Baltimore noticed that a fourth of its inhabitants 

were Acadians. The removal 
of the Acadians is the subject of 
Longfellow's poem Evangeline. 

William Pitt. — In 1757 the 
English found a new Leader in 
William Pitt, who was made 
prime minister. Under his in- 
spiring influence no sacrifices 
seemed too great for the people 
of England or of the colonies. 
Colonial assemblies and parlia- 
ment, colonial officers and Brit- 
ish officers, worked together. 
The colonics raised their share 
of troops ; the mother country 
had to provide only tents, arms, and ammunition. Pitt's 
boldness swept away all obstacles. He once said, " I am 
sure I can save this country and that nobody else can " ; 
and he convinced people that he spoke the truth. 

Capture of French Posts. — In 1758 Louisburg, on Cape 
Breton Island, was captured and the fortress destroyed. 
Fort Frontcnac, which guarded the route from the upper 
St. Lawrence into Lake Ontario, was also taken and de- 
stroyed. Another expedition, in which Washington had a 
share, crossed Pennsylvania to attack Fort Duquesnc. The 
soldiers found only blackened ruins ; the French garrison 
had blown up the fort and fled. The English named the 
cluster of traders' cabins Pittsburgh, in honor of the great 
leader in parliament. 

The reason why the French abandoned Fort Duquesne was 




William Pitt 



CLOSE OF WAR 



131 



the lack of troops to defend it. During the years from 1758 
to 1762 the English captured nine-tenths of all the French 
ships of war, and France could send little help to the brave 
officers and soldiers who were fighting her battles in America. 
In consequence they lost a fortress far more important than 
either Louisburg or Fort Duquesne. This was Quebec, 
their oldest settlement. 

Montcalm and Wolfe ; Fall of Quebec, 1759. — The 
French commander at Quebec was the Marquis de Mont- 
calm, the governor of New France. To increase his troops 




Quebec in 1759 

he pressed into service boys of fifteen and men of eighty. 
Indians were called from far and wide. For the attack 
Pitt sent General James Wolfe. Both Montcalm and Wolfe 
were men of unusual ability. Montcalm had one advantage, 
the position of Quebec, which made it almost unassailable. 
For nearly three months Wolfe watched before Quebec, 
trying to find a weak place in Montcalm's line of defense. 
Every attack that he made was easily repulsed. But Mont- 
calm had posted most of his army to guard the more dis- 
tant approaches, thinking the heights immediately above 
the city, rising in a wall from 250 to 350 feet, could be easily 
defended. He once said that a " hundred men posted there 



132 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 

would stop the whole English army." Wolfe discovered a 
zigzag path up the side about a mile and a half from the city. 
Volunteers attempted this path one dark night in September. 
They surprised the guards stationed at the top. By morn- 
ing 4000 men were in possession of the heights, or Plains of 
Abraham, as they are commonly called. 

Montcalm immediately advanced to the attack. The 
British did not fire until the French were within forty yards. 
The French first wavered, then fled, and Montcalm could not 
rally them. Both he and Wolfe were mortally wounded. Five 
days later Quebec .surrendered. Only Montreal was now left 
in the hands of the French, and it surrendered the next year. 

Close of War. — This practically closed the war in America, 
but the Seven Years' War in Europe dragged on three years 
longer. Before it was over Spain took the side of France 
and also suffered defeat, the English capturing Havana in 
Cuba and Manila in the Philippine Islands. In 1763 peace 
was made and France abandoned to England all her posses- 
sions east of the Mississippi River. Spain was obliged to 
give up Florida, a loss which the French tried to make good 
by giving to Spain New Orleans and all the French territory 
west of the Mississippi. 

New English Colonies. — The English now had three new 
colonial provinces, Canada and East and West Florida. 
They intended to provide governments much like those of 
the other colonics. At first it was impossible to call together 
assemblies representing the inhabitants, and the provinces 
remained under control of military governors. 

An Indian Territory. — The vast region north of the Flor- 
idas and reaching from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi 
River was reserved to the Indians. The English government 
intended to open it for settlement gradually. Meanwhile 
all persons who had settled there were warned to leave. In 
this action the government showed little respect for the 
claims of the different colonies under their charters. Colo- 
nists whose eyes had long been turned to the fertile valleys 
beyond the mountains would not be likely to obey the royal 



PITT AND THE RIGHTS OF THE COLONISTS 133 

proclamation, especially after the dangers of Indian attack 
were lessened. 

Pontiac's War. — The western Indians were not willing to 
submit to English rule. When the English commander-in- 
chief showed no readiness to win their favor by presents, or 
even to allow trade with them to continue, they united under 
the leadership of Pontiac, a chief of the Pottawattamies, and 
attacked all the posts from Detroit to Niagara. With the 
exception of these two, all were taken and their garrisons 
massacred. The Indians of the Ohio Valley attacked the 
posts in western Pennsylvania and advanced into the central 
part of the colony. They finally realized that they could 
not drive the English away and gave up the struggle. The 
royal proclamation forbidding settlers to enter the region 
west of the Alleghenies was intended to quiet their fears and 
pave the way to friendly relations with them. 

Pitt and the Rights of the Colonists. — At the close of the 
war the colonists rejoiced over the victory as much as the 
English at home. They were proud to belong to an empire 
so strong and great. But already something had happened 
which showed that their enthusiasm might be short-lived. 
Even while the war was raging, the northern colonies were 
reluctant to break off their trade with the French West Indies. 
Pitt was angry at the conduct of these colonial traders. He 
was told that the best way to stop such trade with the 
enemy was to enforce the Sugar Act. This he resolved to do, 
and the news caused a panic among the Boston merchants. 

It was difficult to find smuggled goods unless the officers 
could break into storehouses and other places where they 
thought these goods were hidden. An old English maxim 
declared every man's house his castle, into which no officer 
could enter without a special warrant. For the purpose of 
searching for smuggled goods general warrants, called " writs 
of assistance," were used in England, and they had also been 
used in the colonies. In order to stop their issue the mer- 
chants resolved to appeal to the old legal maxim. Although 
they lost their case, James Otis, a young lawyer, awakened 



134 CONQUEST OF FRENCH COLONIES IN AMERICA 

the spirit of resistance by declaring boldly that the colonists 
had all the rights of Englishmen. 

At the same time the Virginians were aroused by a new 
royal veto. Patrick Henry, another young lawyer, declared 
in court that this veto was an act of misrule so serious) that 
the people would be justified in resistance. 1 

Success in the war with the French might quiet such dis- 
putes for a time, but they were certain to begin again unless 
the English government made its laws more fair to the colo- 
nists. Furthermore, disputes would endanger the hold of 
the government on the colonies, now that the expulsion of 
the French from Canada and the Mississippi country had 
partly freed the colonists from the need of British protection. 

Questions 

i . What class of English colonists had begun crossing the Appalach- 
ian barrier before 1750? What settlements had previously been made 
in the Illinois country ? What colonies claimed western lands ? Where 
did they obtain such claims ? 

2. What steps did the French take in 1749 toward occupying the 
Ohio country ? What did the Virginians do ? What was the best route 
from Virginia to the Ohio country ? 

3. What forts did the French build in order to hold the Ohio country ? 
Why did Washington make a journey to one of these forts ? What 
answer did the French commander give him ? 

4. What trouble caused the French and Indian War in America? 
Of what greater war did this French and Indian War become a part ? 
What were the nations fighting about in Europe? How did the war in 
Europe affect the war in America? What advantage had England in 
the war in America ? 

5. Which side did the western Indians take? Why? Why was 
the Albany Congress held? What plan did Franklin present to the 
Congress? Why did not the colonics form a union? 

6. Whom did England send to capture Fort Duqucsne ? Why was 
his expedition defeated? What happened during the next three years 
on the western frontier? What did Washington do during this time? 

7. Who were the Acadians? What was done with them ? What 
poem describes their ; 

'This was the famous "Parson's Cause," which arose from an attempt of the 
Virginians to pay the clergy in money during a scarcity of tobacco. See page 30. 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 



135 



8. Who became the English leader in 1757 ? What was the result 
of the change in leaders ? What part did the colonies take in the French 
and Indian War ? 

9. How did the English finally manage to capture Fort Duquesne? 
What change was made in its name? Why did the English succeed 
so well in America after 1758? 

10. Why was Quebec so hard to capture? Who commanded the 
French defense ? Who led the English at- 
tack ? How did Wolfe capture Quebec ? 

11. What colonies did England gain as 
a result of the Seven Years' War? What 
European country came into possession of 
Louisiana ? Why did France give up Lou- 
isiana ? 

12. How did England decide to use the 
western territory gained during the war 
with France ? What colonies also claimed 
these lands (see p. 122)? Why was it 
difficult for England to enforce the orders 
against settling in the West? Why did 
England wish to keep white settlers from 
the West ? 

13. What happened during the French 
and Indian War to offend the colonists and 
arouse them against the mother country? 
Why was the danger from this trouble all 
the greater now that France no longer held 
Canada? British Soldier 




Exercises 

1. Locate on an outline map the Louisiana, the Illinois, and the 
Canadian settlements and the new forts on the Ohio frontier. Which 
claim to the Ohio country do you think was the better, the French or the 
English? Give reasons for your opinion. 

2. Write a paper describing Washington's part in the French and 
Indian War. 



Important Dates : 

1749. The French and English take the first steps toward seizing 

the Ohio country. 
1755. Braddock's expedition. 
1759. The fall of Quebec. 
1763. End of the French and Indian War, and the struggle of 

France and England for colonies in the New World. 



CHAPTER XIII 
WHY THE ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 

After the War. — Occasions of dispute between the colo- 
nics and the mother country were not likely to disappear with 
the end of the French and Indian War. Money was sorely 
needed. The public debt of Great Britain had been doubled 
in seven years. If the laws regulating colonial trade could 
be made to bring more revenue into the British treasury, 
they might now be enforced. New taxes would be necessary 
in England or America. 

It was likely that the government would grasp the reins 
of colonial management more firmly. Three new colonies 
with a foreign population, besides a vast Indian territory, 
would require the presence of soldiers. The British fleet, 
which had covered itself with glory during the war, must do 
guard duty on many seas, for the British now ruled an 
empire. Conquests in India, as well as in America, gave the 
rulers of England a feeling of power and a sense of responsi- 
bility. Here was the danger. If, in making new plans for 
their many territories, they treated the colonists as subjects, 
rather than Englishmen with rights equal to their own, the 
triumph over France might be turned into a great disaster. 

Grenville's Plan. — In 1763 George Grenville, a new prime 
minister, decided that 10,000 British troops must be kept in 
America and that the colonies should be required to pay at 
least a third of the expense. He planned to raise the money 
chiefly by a stamp tax. He planned also to enforce 
thoroughly the laws regulating trade, and to change the 
Sugar Act so that it would bring in revenue. Like many 
other Englishmen at the time, he forgot that the colonists 
had paid more than their share in the recent war and that 
they still had a part of their war debts to pay. 

136 



THE STAMP ACT 137 

Grenville also did not take into account the fact that the 
taxes charged in English ports on goods sent to America were 
really paid by the colonial purchasers. 1 He and the other 
members of parliament represented chiefly English land- 
holders and merchants. It was hardly fair that they should 
regulate colonial trade in such a way as to increase their 
profits, and at the same time try to shift the burden of taxa- 
tion from their shoulders to those of the colonists. But 
they could not be expected to see this, 
believing, as they did, that the main use 
of colonies was to increase the riches of 
the mother country. 

The king of England was George III, 
then at the beginning of his reign of sixty 
years. He was shrewd but narrowminded, 
and disliked the colonists because they 
were inclined to manage their own affairs. 
He heartily approved Grenville's plan. As a Stamp "of 1765 
many members of parliament were chosen 
through his influence, they voted as he wished. All through 
the troubles with America the " king's friends " were on 
the wrong side of nearly every question. 

Stamp Act. — The new Sugar Act of 1764 did not excite the 
colonists as much as the news that parliament was to intro- 
duce a stamp tax. The colonists denied the right of parlia- 
ment to tax them directly. 2 This right, they said, belonged 
to their own legislatures, where their representatives sat. 

It was of little use for the English officers to reply that 
the colonists were as much represented in parliament as the 
people of Manchester or Birmingham or other cities in Eng- 
land. Such arguments did not convince the colonists. 

1 In the eighteenth century all countries collected export as well as 
import duties. 

2 In 1765 the colonists did not object so much to indirect taxes like 
those in the Sugar Act as to direct taxes like those in the Stamp Act. 
But after the repeal of the Stamp Act they became convinced that 
any tax levied by parliament, instead of by their own legislatures, 
was injurious to them. 




138 WHY ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 

They believed that a legislature which voted taxes must be 
chosen by the persons who paid the taxes. They declared 
that there should be " No taxation without representa- 
tion." In England multitudes of tax-payers could not vote. 
If a town centuries before had not been big enough to send 
members to parliament, it could not now send members, 
however big it was. At the same time towns which once 
had received the right to send members and had grown small 
did not lose the right. If now the same lord owned all the 
property in a town or in three or four of them, he chose the 
members. Scores of members were in reality named by greal 
lords or by the king. The colonists would not have endured 
a legislature like that. Their objection, however, was that 
parliament did not represent them in the sense in which they 
understood representation. 

The Stamp Act was passed in 1765. It was modeled upon 
a statute then successfully enforced in England. Stamps 
varying in value from one cent to $50 must be placed upon 
every almanac, newspaper, pamphlet, marriage license, and 
college diploma, as well as upon a multitude of legal docu- 
ments. Officials were to be appointed to sell the stamps. 

Resistance to the Stamp Act. — Patrick Henry of Virginia 
and James Otis of Massachusetts were again the boldest 
advocates of colonial rights. Henry's resolutions against 
parliamentary taxation, passed in the Virginia assembly, 
were copied in colony after colony. Town meetings and 
county assemblies, ministers in their sermons, and news- 
papers in their editorials, joined in the effort to awaken the 
whole people. 

A storm of declarations of rights, remonstrances, and peti- 
tions swept the country. The legislatures of Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, 
and Virginia protested against the Stamp Act. James Otis 
suggested a general Congress of delegates from the colonics. 
In October, 1765, representatives from nine met in the city 
hall at New York. Other colonies sent letters of sympathy. 
The Congress at New York, usually called the Stamp Act 



RESISTANCE TO THE STAMP ACT 



139 



Congress, decided to publish a statement of the colonial side 
of the controversy and to petition the king and parliament. 
Franklin's device, the wriggling snake with the motto, " Join 
or die," reappeared at the head of the newspapers. Such 
events showed that a spirit of union was growing rapidly. 
Long before the Congress met at New York, the people had 
decided the fate of the Stamp 
Act. 

The merchants of the chief 
towns canceled their orders and 
refused to buy any more goods 
of British make until parlia- 
ment should repeal the Stamp 
Act. Women bound them- 
selves to wear nothing but 
homespun, and conducted spin- 
ning matches where they of- 
fered prizes for the fastest and 
best work. Many zealous pa- 
triots in Boston and Philadel- 
phia circulated pledges to eat 
no lamb in order to increase 
the amount of wool. Secret societies, which called them- 
selves Sons of Liberty, laid plans to destroy the stamps and 
drive the distributors from office. Posters or handbills on 
the doors or street-corners threatened all who tried to sell 
stamps or to use them. The Sons of Liberty of New York 
scattered broadcast a handbill which said, " The first man 
that either distributes or makes use of Stampt Paper let him 
take Care of His House, Person, and Effects." The Stamp 
Act was to go into effect on the first day of November, 1765. 
When the day arrived the stamp distributors had quietly 
resigned and no stamps could be found. 

Repeal of the Stamp Act, 1766. — The refusal to buy or 
use British-made goods or to trade with British merchants 
— a sort of boycott — accomplished all that the colonists 
hoped for. The merchants, manufacturers, and even the 




Patrick Henry 

After the portrait by Sully in the 
State Library, Richmond 



140 WHY ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 

artisans, in Great Britain soon began to suffer from the loss 
of colonial business. Parliament hesitated to drive the col- 
onies into open rebellion and ruin its own merchants besides. 
In March, 1766, the famous Stamp Act was repealed. 

The news of the repeal was received with rejoicing in Eng- 
land and America alike. Bells were rung and banquets were 
held in London as well as in the chief colonial towns. As 




Funeral Procession of the Stamp Act 
A mock burial of the Stamp Act. Grenville is the bearer of the coffin contain- 
ing "Miss Americ Stamp, born, 1765, died 1766." The only mourners are mem- 
bers of the English government. From an old print. 

Pitt had urged repeal, the colonists, forgetting his enf' 
ment of the Sugar Act, displayed his portrait in shop win- 
dows. New York and South Carolina voted him a statue. 
Even the king, though opposed to repeal, enjoyed a brief 
popularity. The Philadelphia Quakers decided to celebrate 
his birthday by dressing in new suits of English make, giv- 
ing their homespun clothing to the poor. 

New difficulties soon arose over the Quartering Act, which 
required the colonics to furnish the royal troops stationed 
in the different places with lodgings, fuel, and food. The 
colonial leaders considered this a mere substitute for taxa- 
tion. New York, Boston, and Charleston refused to comply. 



RESISTANCE TO THE TOWNSHEND DUTIES 



141 



The dispute with New York lasted three years. Its governor 
refused to allow the legislature to sit until the colony finally 
yielded and furnished the soldiers with quarters. 

The Townshend Acts. — In 1767, barely a year after the 
repeal of the Stamp Act, parliament under the leadership of 
Charles Townshend passed other acts to raise money from 
America. The acts put taxes on glass, lead, paper, and tea 
shipped to the colonies. Besides these duties, the colonies 
were still paying, as required by 
the Sugar Act, taxes on sugar, 
molasses, coffee, wine, and indigo. 
Altogether the list was a long 
one, and the colonial leaders were 
convinced that parliament inten- 
ded to establish a permanent 
system of taxation. They liked 
the law still less when they were 
told that the income from the 
new taxes would be used partly 
to pay the salaries of colonial 
governors and judges, who would 
thus be more independent of the 
colonial legislatures. 

Resistance to the Townshend Duties. — Samuel Adams, a 
citizen of Boston, like Otis, now revived the pledges against 
buying or using British-made goods. " We will form," he 
exclaimed, " an immediate and universal combination to 
eat nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing, imported from 
Great Britain." Washington wrote to his agent in London 
telling him not to send any articles taxed by parliament, for 
said he, "I have very heartily entered into an association 
not to import any article which now is, or hereafter shall be, 
taxed for this purpose until the said act or acts are repealed." 

The senior class at Harvard College agreed, in 1768, to 
graduate " dressed altogether in the manufactures of the 
country." The students of Rhode Island College, now 
Brown University, followed their example the next year. 




Samuel Ad'ams 

After Copley's portrait in the 

Boston Mueseum of Fine Arts 



142 WHY ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 



Some colonists resorted to violence in resisting the hated 
taxes. In New England towns, especially, mobs of town 
toughs on more than one occasion roughly handled mer- 
chants who ventured to import British goods. Conflicts 
between customs officers and mobs were frequent. Such 
acts of lawlessness went unpunished, for no jury could 

be found which 
would convict 
the guilty. 

Boston Mas- 
sacre, March 5, 
1770. — In 1768 
two British regi- 
ments were sent 
to Boston, where 
attacks upon cus- 
toms officers had 
been most seri- 
ous. Benjamin 
Franklin had 
W arned the 
king's advisers 
that if soldiers 
were sent to America to enforce taxation they would not find 
a rebellion but might make one. Their presence angered the 
citizens. The rougher men and boys lost no opportunity of 
insulting the soldiers. The wonder is that no serious clash 
took place for nearly two years. But on the evening of 
March 5, 1770, a mob began pelting a sentry in front of the 
custom house, and when several guards came to his rescue 
knocked one of them down. The soldiers thereupon fired 
into the crowd, killing five and wounding six. The colonists 
called the affray the " Bloody Massacre " or the " Boston 
Massacre." 

Tax on Tea. — The pledges not to use British goods were 
so effective that within a year the colonial trade decreased 
nearly $4,000,000. Parliament yielded again and repealed 




The Boston Massacre 
From an engraving by Paul Revere 



COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE 143 

all duties provided for in the Townshend acts except a tax 
of six cents a pound on tea. It was thought that the colo- 
nists would not object to one small tax, and that they would 
become accustomed to paying taxes levied by parliament. 
This was another blunder, for the colonists objected to taxed 
tea as strongly as before. The women of Edenton, the 

TO THE 

DELAWARE 
PILOTS. 

TH E Regard we hire for your Characters, and our Defire to promote your 
future Peace and Safety, are the Occasion of this Third Addrefs to you 
Im oui fecond Letter we acquainted you, that the Tea Ship was a Three 
Decker ; We are now ltifoimed by good Authority, fhe is not a Three Decker, but 
an old Had. Skip, without a Bead, or any Ornaments 

The CapUunis3./hatfalTe])ow, and a lide ot/h/iatevnliiai -So much theworfe 
for him -For, fo fure as he iiJti rufty. We fhall heave him Keel out, and fee that 
his Bottom be well fired, fcrubbd and paid,- His Upper- Works too, will have an 
Overhauling - and asms faid, betas a good deal of QuukWork about him, We 
will lake particular Care that fuch Part of him undergoes a thorough Rummaging 

% have a flail norje Account of hi Oiuner ,.- lor it is fiid, the Ship Polly was 
bought by him on Pui pole, to make a Penny of us , and that he and Captain Ayres 
were wefj advifed of the Rifque they would run, in thus danng to infult and abule 

Captain Ayrei was here m the Time of the Stamp-Act, and ought to have known 
our People better, than to have expected we would be fo mean as to fuffer his rotten, 
TEA to befunnel'ddownourThioats, with the Farlwmeni's Eutymix&i with it. 

•wt know him well, and have calculated to a Gill and a Feather, how much it 
will require to Ct him for an American TjJuimon. And we hope, not one of your 
Body will behave fo ill, as to oblige us to clap him m the Cart along Side of the 
Captain, 

We mult repeat, that the S H I P P L 1 Y is an eld Mack Shp, of about Two 
Hundred and Fifty Tons burthen tuithouc a Bead, and mahout Ornameru&r-- and, that 

CAPTAIN AYRES is a (hack chunk} Fellow. — As fuch, T-oce Care to 

avoid THEM. 

You*. Oid Fititwus, 
The C0MM1TTIE rot TARRING and rEVTHERTNC 

P»l ' l* ) lil. Oamitr J, 1773. 

How Philadelphia Citizens prevented the Landing of Tea 

Reduced facsimile 

colonial capital of North Carolina, banded together to use 
no more of the " pernicious herb." Sassafras or raspberry 
tea, they said, was better than the bitterness in taxed tea. 

Committees of Correspondence. — Many of the colonists 
were becoming weary of such constant strife. If the Brit- 
ish government had not made new blunders every year or 
two, perhaps the spirit of resistance would have died out. 



144 WHY ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 

Meanwhile Samuel Adams and other Boston patriots organ- 
ized Committees of Correspondence in the Massachusetts 
towns in order to keep the acts of the government constantly 
before the people. At this time some Rhode Islanders 
burned the British revenue vessel Gaspee, and the govern- 
ment tried to find them in order that they might be taken to 
England for trial. Such a threat aroused the Virginia as- 
sembly, and it proposed the formation of Committees of 
Correspondence between the colonies. In this way the 
machinery for organized resistance was being created. 

Boston " Tea Party." — In 1773 parliament made a plan 
about the tea trade which aimed to accomplish three things 
— tempt the colonists to buy tea on which a tax was paid, 
put an end to colonial smuggling in tea, 1 and help the East 
India Company sell its tea. The company then had 17,- 
000,000 pounds of tea in its warehouses. The plan was to 
permit the company to send a certain amount of tea to 
America without first selling it to the English merchants. 
Thus the price would be very low in the colonies because 
the merchant's profits would not be included. This would 
make the colonists forget about the tax. At the same time 
the smuggler would lose the business. 

Several ships loaded with tea were sent to Boston, New 
York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. The news aroused 
great indignation in the colonies. In Philadelphia and 
New York committees of citizens persuaded the captains 
of the ships to return to London without entering the harbors. 

At Charleston the royal officers stored the tea in the 
cellars of the custom house. There it remained. No agent 
of the East India Company dared to pay the duty and offer 
it for sale. Three years later, when war had begun, South 
Carolina sold the tea to pay war expenses. 

In Boston the royal officials were determined to land the 
tea. A great public meeting was held in the Old South 

1 At this time most of the tea used in the colonies was smuggled in. 
Colonial vessels regularly bought tea in the East Indies or in Holland and 
found ways of slipping it into the ports without paying the British tax. 



THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, 1774 



145 



Meeting House*. The leaders failed to convince the gov- 
ernor that the ships must be sent away. Night having come 
on, the crowd rushed to the wharves. Forty or fifty men, 
disguised as Indians, boarded the ships. By nine o'clock 
every chest of tea had been 
broken open and the contents 
thrown into the sea. 

Punishment of Boston. — ANN0 DECIM0 v^rto 

The royal government now 
attempted to punish Boston as 
an object lesson to all the colo- 
nies. The port was closed and 
the custom house removed to 
Salem until the citizens should 
pay the East India Company 
about $75,000, the value of the 
tea which had been destroyed. 
A little later the government 
of the colony was so changed 
that the colonists could not 
hold a town meeting without 
the governor's consent. Their 
juries also were selected by 
sheriffs appointed by the gov- 
ernor. These laws were called 
the ' ' Intolerable Acts . " x They 
excited the Massachusetts 

people so much that General Gage, the new governor, who 
had arrived with four more regiments, was obliged to fortify 
the narrow neck of land which connected Boston with the 
surrounding country. 

The distress of Boston, with its trade ruined, stirred the 
sympathy of the other colonies. Salem offered the free use 

1 In 1774 the colonists were also excited by the passage of the Quebec 
Act, for the government of that province; first, because the province 
was extended southward to the Ohio River, notwithstanding the land 
claims of the colonies on the coast, and second, because no provision 
was made for a provincial assembly representing the inhabitants. 



Georgii III. Regis. 



C A. P. XIX. 

An AA to ducontinue, in luch Manner, and for 
iuch. Time as are therein mentioned, tho 
landing and difcharging, lading or Shipping, 
of Goods, Wares, and Merchandife, at the 
Town, and. within the Harbour, oCA/on, in 
the Province of Majfachufet's Baj, in North 
jtmeriuu 

t>«TR«E39 aangetoiu oTUmmoriona' 
Q 8nb 'infurreirraM baot been foramrrt 
arrt) tailtb ia the Comn ot Bofton, in 
tbe 'JJitfUintf of VToflachufcfs Bay. in 
New England, by Bioer* ill atotrt lfct' 
ftnsr, to tfjc ^oMitt-fion of #i» gaajoh/* 
<? rtjsrnmtnt, anb to ffre uttre ©tftruftion or toe publics 
Ipface, anb goob ©iott or tf»e teib (Town; in tobic)) 
CTonrmobona ario 3nr«teaion« carton uataablt (Saroow 
oT CM2. beinf the \p\nytttp of tbe Eail India Company, 
ant) on leoarb cecum tleftcls lumj vuiibm tbe peg 04 
t o 1 Oattme 

First Page of the Boston 
Port Bill 

Reduced facsimile 




146 WHY ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 



of its wharves and warehouses to the Boston merchants. 
The towns of Massachusetts and other colonics sent supplies. 
Israel Putnam, a veteran of the French and Indian War, 
drove to Boston a Sock of sheep from his Connecticut town. 
Washington headed a subscription in Fairfax County, Vir- 
ginia, with a gift of $250, promising also to raise a thousand 

men, maintain them at his 
own expense, and march 
to the relief of Boston. 

The Continental Con- 
gress, 1774. — Parliament 
and King George had 
J counted on dealing with 
Massachusetts alone. 
Never was a graver mis- 
take made. The other 
colonies declared that Bos- 
ton was " suffering in 
the common cause." 
The members of the Vir- 
ginia assembly, Washing- 
ton, Patrick Henry, and 
Thomas Jefferson among 
them, suggested that a 
general Congress, like the 
Stamp Act Congress of 
1765, should be held. The Virginians sent their plan to the 
other colonics and invited Massachusetts to name the date 
and place. On September 5, 1774, the Congress met in the 
Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. It was called the Conti- 
nental Congress, and included delegates from twelve colonies. 
The Continental Congress, like the Stamp Act Congress, 
drew up a declaration of the rights of the colonies and a 
statement of their grievances. Their list of grievances had 
grown much longer. The "Intolerable Acts" were called 
" impolitic, unjust, and cruel." Two decisions of the Con- 
were particularly important. By the first the members 




Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, 

1774 
Where the first Continental Congress met 



FRIENDS OF AMERICA IN ENGLAND 



147 



agreed to suspend all trade with Great Britain. No one was 
either to import or consume tea or any other British goods. 
After one year no American should sell or export his goods 
to England. Committees should be appointed in every 
county or town to see that the agreement was faithfully 
kept. By the second decision Congress, when it adjourned, 
proposed that a second Continental Congress should meet 
in May, 1775. 

Two Parties in America. — Many colonists ^nought that 
resistance to the English government had gone too far. 
They believed that parliament in repealing the Stamp Act 
and most of the taxes in the Townshend acts had treated 
the colonies fairly. They also thought that the frequent 
attacks on the English officials, who tried to enforce the laws, 
justified measures like the Intolerable Acts. The merchants 
had grown tired of the steady loss of trade. Among the 
friends of Great Britain in the colonies were, of course, many 
office holders. All who sided with Great Britain were called 
loyalists or Tories. Their opponents called themselves 
patriots, and American historians have usually given this 
name to them. The English leaders had other names for 
them — demagogues and rebels. 

Friends of America in England. — As the English officials 
found supporters in the Loyalists or Tories of America, so 
the patriots' party in America had defenders in England. 
Several distinguished members of Parliament, like William 
Pitt, Edmund Burke, and Charles James Fox, opposed every 
one of the measures to punish the colonists proposed by the 
" King's Friends." This they did not only because they 
took a friendly interest in the Americans, but also because 
they thought that such acts endangered the liberties of Eng- 
lishmen everywhere, in England quite as much as in the 
colonies. The mayor and aldermen of London joined in 
their protests. Others started committees of correspondence 
in order to unite all friends of fair dealing. John Wesley, 
the famous founder of Methodism, warned the King's Friends 
of the unpopularity of their measures with the tradesmen and 



148 WHY ENGLISH COLONISTS BECAME REVOLUTIONISTS 

yeomen and small manufacturers, the mill-hands and the 
colliers to whom he preached ; and he said that these men only 
lacked a daring leader to break into open rebellion in England 
as their kindred had in America. But the defenders of the 
American cause were for a time outnumbered by those who 
supported the King's party. His followers had their way. 

Questions 

1. Why were the colonies and mother country more likely to have 
trouble after the French and Indian War? 

2. What was Grenville's plan? Why was this unfair? 

3. What was the main objection of the colonists to the Stamp Act ? 
How were many members of parliament chosen ? Who voted for 
members of the legislatures in the colonies ? 

4. How did the colonists prevent the enforcement 1 >f the Stamp Act ? 
Who were their leaders in resisting it ? 

5. Why did parliament repeal the Stamp Act ? What grounds 
of dispute still remained ? 

6. What taxes did Townshend add to those already in force? 
Why did the colonies dislike Townshend's acts even more than 
Grenville's ? 

7. What methods did the colonists use to resist Townshend's duties ? 
Why did parliament send soldiers to Boston? What warning did 
Franklin give the king's advisers? 

8. Why did parliament repeal most of the Townshend duties? 
What taxes did the colonists still have to pay? What method did 
Samuel Adams invent in order to inform the colonists about the acts of 
parliament? What addition did Virginia propose to his method? 

9. What change did parliament make in 1773 with regard to tea? 
How did the colonists prevent the payment of the tea tax? How did 
parliament try to punish Boston ? 

10. What two decisions did the Continental Congress at Philadel- 
phia form ? How was the first decision or agreement to be enforced ? 

11. Did all American colonists agree with those leaders who resisted 
the acts of parliament ? What names were given to those who sided 
with Great Britain? To those who supported the colonial resistance? 

Important Dates: 

1765. Parliament under Grenville's leadership passes the Stamp 

Act. 
1767. Townshend places further taxes on the colonies. 
1774. Meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR 

Preparations for War. — One of the consequences of the 
Intolerable Acts in 1774 was that the Massachusetts House 
of Representatives reorganized itself as a Provincial Con- 
gress. A committee of safety which it appointed began to 
prepare for armed resistance. All over New England com- 
panies of militia were formed and were drilled regularly. 
Every fourth man was pledged to take thej field at a 
minute's notice and was called the " minute-man." Mili- 
tary stores were collected. Other colonies also appointed 
committees of safety and prepared for a struggle. 

Early in September it looked as if war would begin at 
once. General Gage sent troops to seize 300 barrels of pow- 
der stored a few miles from Boston. The report spread that 
the soldiers had killed six colonists. Before it was disproved 
40,000 men had seized their guns and started for Boston. A 
similar expedition in April, 1775, led to fighting. 

Lexington and Concord. — General Gage wished to destroy 
the military stores which the colonists had collected at Con- 
cord, eighteen miles northwest of Boston. Every effort was 
made to keep the expedition a secret. It left Boston late 
at night on April 18, and marched by unfrequented paths 
until well on the way to Lexington and Concord. The Bos- 
ton " patriots," among them Dr. Joseph Warren, heard of 
the plan early in the evening, and sent messengers to warn 
the colonists. Paul Revere was one of the messengers. 
Before leaving he asked a friend to hang two lanterns in 
the tower of the North Church as a signal to patriots in 
Charlestown that the British had started. 

Revere and other messengers were soon riding madly 
through the country-side calling the villagers to arms. The 

149 



ISO THE OUTBREAK UP THE WAR 

ringing of bells, the beating of drums, and the firing of guns 
told the British soldiers that the secret was out. They 
reached Lexington, twelve miles on their way to Concord, 
just as day was breaking. On the village green stood fifty 
or sixty minute-men. Resistance was out of the question and 
their leader ordered them to withdraw. But in the confusion 
a shot was fired, and soon the firing became general. The 
colonial militia retreated after eight of their number were 
killed and ten wounded. Only one or two of the British 
were wounded. 

At Concord the British found few stores, because most of 
these had been hidden securely or removed to neighboring 
towns. They destroyed thirty or forty barrels of flour, spiked 
two or three cannon, and threw some cannon balls into a mill- 
pond. Meanwhile the minute-men were assembling rapidly 
on the hills about the town. A large body soon attacked and 
drove off the British soldiers who had been stationed at the 
North Bridge. 

A Disastrous Retreat. — Fighting began in earnest about 
noon when the British started on their return march to Bos- 
ton. From behind every hill, house, or stone wall the minute- 
men and farmers shot at the column of soldiers. The march 
was soon changed into a disorderly flight. Rcenforccments 
from Boston met the British at Lexington. But so rapidly 
did the militia gather on the route that the whole body of 
British soldiers barely escaped capture. Panic-stricken and 
exhausted, they found refuge at nightfall under the guns of 
the British ships near Charlestown. 

Meaning of Lexington and Concord. — The losses on both 
sides in this struggle were heavy, although the British losses 
were three times those of the colonists. The chances of a 
peaceful settlement of the controversy between parliament 
and the colon i. were now slight. Blood had been shed and 
the fighting spirit was increased by the tales spread in Eng- 
land and the colonies. The colonists were told that the 
British had begun the battle and had destroyed property 
and maltreated families along their route. The English 



MEANING OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD 



151 



heard that the wrongs were all on the other side. It was 
clear, at all events, that the colonial militia would fight to 
defend their rights. " I never believed," said a British officer 
sadly, "that they would have attacked the king's troops." 
Lexington and Concord were not riots like the " Boston 
Massacre," but the opening battles of a great revolution. 
Siege of Boston. — The minute-men who had driven the 
British into Boston did not return home, but remained en- 
camped in a great circle about the city. They meant that 




The Battle at Lexington, April 19, 1775 
After an engraving made by two Continental militia-men who were in the battle 

General Gage should send no more expeditions to seize their 
stores. They soon determined to drive him out of Boston. 
Other companies of militia came in from towns too far 
away to have a share in the first day's fighting. John Stark, 
a veteran of the French wars, led the New Hampshire militia. 
Israel Putnam rode from Connecticut, one hundred miles, in 
eighteen hours, reaching the camp on the morning of April 
2 1 . He had left orders for his men to follow immediately. 

Armies are not created in a day. Military leaders now 
believe that men must be taught many months before they 
can be called trained soldiers. At first, therefore, the 
minute-men at Cambridge and other towns around Boston 



152 THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 

formed an armed crowd rather than an army. Each man 
had brought his own gun, with a small stock of powder and 
bullets. Pew were in uniform, most of the men being dressed 
as they were when the alarm sounded. It was astonishing 
that they had assembled so rapidly. It seemed as if they 
had sprung out of the ground at the stamp of some great 
leader's foot. The " patriots," with their committees 

of correspondence, had 

Chamber of Supplies, Watertown, June IB, lJ7f. * 

C"* t "«». , „ made plans to meet just 

THE Welfare of our Country again induces us to urge? your r J 

eirri™ , n faring u to Magai.ne m £»£«>£« such an event as General 
cm be procured o( the following Articles. Sail Pork, beans, 

Peas. Vinegar and Blankets, the pruea whereof as well at flop-oV ill.fatpfl PYnpHi- 

theCan.ng fhaJI be allowed according to the CuOom of your Plate. ^ <*£*•- b 1U ldlcu CAJJCU1 

which we defire you to certify — It is of the utmnfl Importance that f •{/-.« 

the Army fnould be fuppl.cd agreeable to the Refolve of thf Con- L1UI1 . 

grrfs more efpecially with thrfe Armies, the four fuft of which ate Cn» nn J rnnfinanrnl 

necelTary for the Subfiflence as well as the Health of the Men, and OeCOUU V^OniineUiai 

the other for their Comfort— The occa/ion of the Deficiency in P Af ,., apr IV/T^tt t n»i- 

Blcniii, is moflly owing to a number of Men enlrfled from Boflon L/OngreSS, IVlay, 1775- 

»nd other Towns which have been vacated, and they all muft be rpt. O J /""** a. " a. 1 

procured immediately or out worth) Countrymen will fuflcr.— ■ 1 Y\Q, beCOnd L-OntinCntal 

As (he Country affoids every trung in plenty neceflary lofubfft ~, » , 

the A ray. and wr cannot at prefent obtain many things but by yew L^OngTCSS mCt On JVlay 
Adidance, we affureourWyes thatyou will «c'i your partsas wotthily . 

as you have done and hope that the Event of all our exertions will IO, I J "/ 5 , 111 1 liilaClClpriia, 
be the Salvation of our Country. i /-> 

To it* jetow, „*/ owl* at the Old btate House. 

of Corrtfpondtntt for lot Town . ... 

c/. tr- .^ .^^ dav,o curve, per order of Thirteen colonies from 

>( _^t>. Committee of Supplies. 

_ T New Hampshire to Geor- 

l all for Food and Blankets June . 

l8 _- gia were represented. 

Nova Scotia, Quebec, 
and the Floridas hold off. Their inhabitants had no interest 
in the cause which was bringing the other colonies together. 
How the conditions had changed since the first Congress 
met in September, eight months earlier ! The delegates 
were assembled now, not to devise ways of compelling 
Great Britain to repeal the " intolerable " laws, but to 
manage a war which had actually begun. This was more 
serious business. Congress derided to make the cause of 
Massachusetts that of all the colonies. It promptly adopted 
the New England militia encamped around Boston as a 
" Continental " army. Steps were taken to raise other 
troops and find food and supplies for all. A delegate from 
Virginia, the foremost soldier in America, George Washing- 
ton, was unanimously chosen commander-in-chief. Wash- 
ington sel out for Cambridge, the headquarters of the army, 



BUNKER HILL 



153 



on June 21. He had proceeded scarcely twenty miles from 
Philadelphia when a rider hurrying with messages to Con- 
gress gave him the news of another battle with the British. 

Bunker Hill, June 17. — Boston could not be attacked 
directly except by a narrow neck of land, called Boston Neck, 
which General Gage had covered with batteries. On the 
north and on the south, however, were two peninsulas, 
crowned by hills, which reached out toward the city. These 




Boston, Bunker Hill, and Charlestown 

hills were called Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights. 
Batteries placed on them could soon destroy Boston. To 
forestall such a danger General Gage decided to occupy them 
on June 18. The American leaders learned of the British 
plans and determined to act first. On the night of June 16 
Colonel William Prescott with 1,200 men stole quietly along 
the neck of the northern peninsula and over Bunker Hill 
to Breed's Hill, which was somewhat lower but nearer 
Boston. His men could hear the regular monotonous cry 
of " All's well " uttered by sentinels on the ships in the 



154 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 



Charles River. Silently and rapidly, with pick and shovel, 
they threw up earthworks. Within these they constructed 
low platforms of earth or boards to enable them to fire across 
the top. The British could scarcely believe their eyes when 
morning dawned. 

The British officers did not think that raw militia would 
resist a direct attack. They might have seized the neck of 

the peninsula and occupied 
Bunker Hill, which would 
have turned the tables on the 
colonial troops. But they 
decided to attack in front. 
Prcscott, when he saw their 
red lines advancing up the 
hill, knowing that his men 
had few bayonets and only a 
small stock of powder, told 
his men to wait until they 
saw " the whites of their 
eyes," to " aim at the hand- 
some coats," and to " pick 
off the commanders." At 
the first fire whole lines of 
British went down, and their 
comrades fell back in disor- 
der. Again they advanced 
in the face of a murderous fire, and again they fell back, leav- 
ing the ground covered with dead and wounded. General 
Howe, who was in command, ordered a third attack. Sud- 
denly the firing from the redoubt slackened and ceased. The 
powder of the colonial soldiers was used up. They had noth- 
ing left save the butts of their muskets and stones. The con- 
sequence was that the British soon drove them back across 
Bunker Hill and out of the peninsula- The British paid dearly 
for their victory, losing over a thousand men in killed and 
wounded. No wonder one of the colonial officers remarked 
that they would like to sell another hill at the same price ! 




Bunker Hill Monl.mkm 



MAKING AN ARMY 



155 



Making an Army. — Washington arrived at Cambridge 
on July 2, about two weeks after the battle, and took com- 
mand of the army the following day. His first task was to 
begin the soldierly training of the bands of farmers and 
mechanics which made up the revolutionary force. He 
must also procure powder, bullets, and cannon. Many 
cannon and a large amount of 
powder had already been seized 
by Ethan Allen and a band of 
" Green Mountain Boys " at 
Fort Ticonderoga on Lake 
Champlain. The cannon could 
not be brought to Cambridge 
until the snows of the next 
winter made it easy to haul 
them. Other needed supplies 
were obtained by the capture 
of a British storeship as it was 
nearing Boston. Washington 
showed great patience and tact, 
as well as firmness, in the te- 
dious work of preparing the 
army for war. 

Among the soldiers were 
many Irish, Scotch-Irish, and 
German immigrants. 1 Whole 
companies, especially in Penn- 
sylvania, contained few or no 
English colonists. Some of the soldiers had seen service in 
European armies, others in the recent war with the French 

1 By the Revolution the thirteen colonies ceased to be dependencies 
of England. They became instead parts of a new nation formed in 
North America. From this time the people leaving Europe for America 
are thought of, not so much as emigrants from Europe and subjects 
of a European kingdom, but as immigrants into the United States and 
members of the Republic. For this reason the words "immigrant" 
and "immigration" will now be used where "emigrant" and "emi- 
gration" have been used. 




George Washington in 1775 
After the portrait by Peak 




156 THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 

and Indians. Many of the farmers, accustomed to life on the 
frontier or to hunting, readily Learned the lessons of warfare. 
While Washington was busy with his task at Cambridge, 
an attempt was made to invade Canada and seize Quebec. 
The colonial troops reached Quebec but failed to capture it. 
Their attempt had one important consequence : it alarmed 
the British government so much that the army brought to- 
gether to subdue the rebellious colonists was divided and a 

part sent to Canada. This les- 
sened the number of troops which 
Washington had to deal with 
directly. 

General Howe, who had taken 
the place of General Gage, made 

no attempt to attack Wash- 
Flag of thk United Colo- . , , _, 

NIES IN 1775-1777 Ulgt0nS C8nlPS ab ° Ut BOSt ° n: 

on the contrary, he was planning 
to withdraw. Washington did not complete his preparations 
until winter had come and almost gone. On the night of 
March 4, 1776, he made a move similar to the seizure of 
Bunker Hill. His soldiers occupied Dorchester Heights 
and built two redoubts. General Howe remarked, when 
morning came and he saw the forts through his glass, " The 
rebels have done more in one night than my whole army 
would have done in a month." The British admiral said, 
" If they retain possession of the heights I cannot keep a 
ship in the harbor." Howe decided at once that he must 
cither storm forts far stronger than Prescott's defences on 
Bunker Hill or withdraw from Boston. He chose the Latter 
course, and on March 17 the British fleet, with his army 
aboard, left the city, bound for Halifax. 

Boston after the Siege. — Nearly a thousand inhabitants 
of Boston left with the British. Among them were the former 
officials of the king in the colony and many of the older 
families, who formed the aristocracy of the town. They 
went into voluntary exile because they sympathized with the 
British cause. 



BOSTON AFTER THE SIEGE 157 

Boston's direct experience with war was over. The in- 
habitants had suffered hardships from famine and disease. 
Charlestown, a neighboring town, burned during the battle 
of Bunker Hill, was still a scene of utter desolation. The 
people bravely went to work to make Boston secure against 
another British invasion. Every able-bodied man gave two 
days each week toward rebuilding the fort in the harbor and 
strengthening the other defenses. In a few days Washington, 
with the main body of his army, departed 
for New York, which he thought the 
British would soon attempt to seize. 
The capture of Boston was Washington's 
first victory. 




Questions 

1 . In what ways did the colonists prepare for 
war with the mother country? 

2. Why did the British commander at Boston 
send an expedition to Concord ? Why was it 
harder after this to make a peaceful settlement? First Flag of the 

3. How could the patriots so quickly gather United States 

a body of men for the siege of Boston ? Why is Adopted by Congress in 
this body of men called "an armed crowd" 17 77 

rather than an army ? 

4. What colonies sent representatives to the Second Continental 
Congress ? Why did others send none ? What was the difference be- 
tween the work of the First Continental Congress and the Second? 

5. Why did the colonists occupy a position near Bunker Hill ? 

6. How did Washington secure additional materials of war ? What 
important result came from the attempt to seize Quebec ? 

7. How did Washington finally drive the British army out of Boston ? 
What inhabitants of Boston sided with the mother country and went 
into exile ? 

Exercise 

1. Locate on an outline map of Boston and the vicinity all places 
mentioned in this chapter, and tell what happened at each. 

Important Dates : 

April 19, 1775. Battles of Lexington and Concord. 
May 10, 1775. The Second Continental Congress meets. 
June 17, 1775. The Battle ot Bunker Hill. 
March 17, 1776. General Gage abandons Boston. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE BIRTH OF A NEW NATION 

Great Britain and the Colonial Rebellion. — Washington's 
success in driving the British army from Boston did not 
convince cither parliament or King George that the time had 
come for conciliatory measures. It made them only more 
anxious to put forth every effort to subdue the rebellious 
colonists. They had already refused to reply to a petition of 
the Continental Congress for a friendly settlement of the 
difficulties. They had also made the blunder of hiring Ger- 
man soldiers to swell the numbers of their army, forgetting 
the fact that a little over a hundred years before the attempt 
to use foreign soldiers to subdue Englishmen had cost Charles 
I and his principal minister their heads. Parliament also 
passed an act cutting off the colonics from all trade while 
the " rebellion " lasted. 

Thinking about Separation. — The colonists had begun to 
think that there was little hope of fair treatment from parlia- 
ment and king. At first only a few leaders like Samuel 
Adams, John Adams, and Patrick Henry thought it useless 
to expect parliament to change its manner of dealing. Most 
of the colonists would have been glad to return to friendly 
relations with the mother country. Washington, when on 
his way to Cambridge in 1775, had promised the members of 
the New York provincial congress that he would work toward 
that end. As the winter passed with no better news from 
England, feeling changed. The colonists asked one another 
why, if they could not govern themselves in the British 
cm] )irc\ they should not try to govern themselves out of it? 
If they must fight, why not fight for independence? 

Paine's Common Sense. — Thomas Paine, an Englishman 
who had recently settled in Philadelphia, published a remark- 
able pamphlet early in 1776. lie railed it Common Sense. 

158 




THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 159 

Many of the colonists held kings in reverence, believing 
that George III was their God-given ruler. Paine ridiculed 
such ideas. He bluntly called kings " sceptred savages " 
and "royal brutes." "Of more worth," he declared, "is 
one honest man to society . . . than all the crowned ruffians 
that ever lived." Monarchy instead of being the best form 
of government was, he said, the worst. And how absurd, he 
wrote, " to be always running three or four thousands miles 
with ... a petition, waiting four or five months for an 

A aU i- -4 y , t. • • ;rjf - 

m/CiUt. Alt taj~3 Sf tuXuvVC V J) r^aJk^rt. '■> £*9 -€~3LdA. rtlsrry. , «. dUc^rt yxjjH-tA; 

to if*. iJt^tsJU^m Jt~~rMiO >*^a^S fLjt iL~ A»J*a 4*JL~". ™*- ****** ■ 

Facsimile of the First Two Paragraphs of the 
Declaration of Independence 

In the writing of Jefferson 

answer," " or to suppose that a continent should be governed 
by an island." " The blood of the slain," he added, " cries, 
f 'Tis time to part.' " Much that Paine wrote was so simple, 
so convincing, such " common sense," that thousands read it 
and concluded that separation was necessary. 

The Declaration of Independence. — The colonies one by 
one advised their delegates in Congress to work for independ- 
ence. Finally, on July 2, 1776, Congress voted " that these 
United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and 
independent states ; . . . that all political connection be- 



i6o 



THE H1RTH OF A NEW NATION 



tween them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to 

totally dissolved." Two days later, July 4, Con 
adopted a formal Declaration of Independence, which 
Thomas Jefferson had written, announcing to the world the 
new purpose of the colonics. It stated the right to " life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which the colonists 
had claimed for themselves all along, and added a start- 
ling list of charges against the king. These were given as 
the reason for seeking independence. Perhaps some of the 









# 0.0 

to 010 
toelSHI 







s 


m L 




Room in which the Declaration was Signed 

charges were not fair, for Jefferson was making a plea, and 
not writing a history. Most of them, however, were true. 

The Royalists or Tories. — About one-third of the inhab- 
itants of the thirteen colonies opposed separation from Great 

Britain. In New York and Pennsylvania the loyalists and 
patriots were about equally divided. The Quakers were 
opposed to war for any purpose. Many loyalists declared 
that if the colonics should win their independence from Great 
Britain, they would only fall victims to discord and desola- 
tion. The loyalists thought the patriot leaders self-seeking 
lawyers and shop-keepers, or debtors who wished to escape 
paying their British creditors. 



o 

H 
M 
w 



w 
n 

;>■ 

> 

H 

O 
3 




MAKING NEW GOVERNMENTS 



161 



Making New Governments. — The decision to separate 
from Great Britain compelled the colonists to remodel their 
provincial governments. Each colony now became a " state." 
The royal governors and other officers had already fled to 
England or taken refuge with the nearest British garrisons 
or fleets. William Franklin, the royalist governor of New 
Jersey, though the son of Benjamin Franklin, had been seized 
by the revolutionists and sent 
to a Connecticut prison. Not 
only must the vacant offices 
be filled, but the governments 
must be changed in part. John 
Adams said that the manu- 
facture of governments was as 
much talked of as saltpeter had 
been at the outbreak of war 
when powder was needed. 

The only governments which 
required little change were those 
of Connecticut and Rhode 
Island. There the people had 
been permitted by the colonial 
charters to choose their officers, including their governors. 
The local government in town and county was left undis- 
turbed. 

Colonial Constitutions. — In the other colonies the new 
form or frame of government was set forth in a document 
called a constitution. This was decided upon in a congress 
or convention of delegates representing the colony. In some 
cases it was referred to the voters themselves. The first 
plan of a constitution in Massachusetts was rejected by the 
voters five to one. Each constitution explained not only 
what the officers could do, but what they could not do. The 
colonists had learned, either from bitter experience with 
their English officers, or from their reading of European 
history, to distrust officials. Bills or lists of rights which 
the people claimed and which their officers must respect 




John Adams 

After the portrait by Copley 



162 THE BIRTH OF A NEW NATION 

were inserted in each constitution. Many of these rights 
Englishmen had claimed as far back as the time of the 
Magna Charla. Others, far-sighted Englishmen and Eu- 
ropeans had only begun to claim in the seventeenth or 
eighteenth century. The principal ones were " Trial by 
Jury," " No Taxation without Representation," " Freedom 
of the Press," " Freedom of Elections," and the " Right of 
Assembly and Petition." 

Governors and Legislators. — Governors chosen by the 
people, or by their legislatures, took the place of royal gov- 
ernors. The colonists, fearing " one-man " power, were care- 
ful not to give their governors much authority. Most of the 
powers which the royal governors had exercised were now 
given to the legislatures. The legislators were elected for 
only one or two years, to keep any of them from becoming 
overbearing or tyrannical through long enjoyment of office. 
Besides, the constitution-makers scattered the various powers 
among the law-makers, the governors, and the judges in such 
a way that one set of officials might act as a check upon 
another. 

Great care was taken to break away from many old-world 
customs. No kings, no nobles, no class with special privileges 
because of birth, such as existed almost everywhere in Europe, 
were permitted by any of the American constitutions. When 
some one in Virginia urged that the eldest son ought, at 
least, to have a double share of his father's estate, Jefferson 
replied, " Not until he can eat a double allowance of food 
and do a double allowance of work." ' 

The work of making these constitutions interested not only 
the colonists but many Europeans, especially thoughtful 
Frenchmen. Twice during the war, first in 1778 and again 
in 1781, collections of the constitutions were translated into 
French and published in Paris. The second collection 
was translated by a nobleman at the request of Benjamin 
Franklin. 

1 Before the Revolution the eldest son in Virginia, as in Great Britain, 
inherited the larger share of the father's estate. 



THE FIRST UNION OF THE STATES 



163 



The First Union of the States. — To Congress belonged the 
harder task of making a frame of government which should 
bind the states together. Unlike the state conventions it 
could not simply remodel a government with which all 
were familiar. Although it began its work in June, 1776, 
it was not until the close of the following year that Con- 
gress agreed upon a constitution, called the " Articles of 
Confederation." One difficulty 
was the jealousy which the dele- 
gates from some of the states felt 
of the influence which other states 
appeared to have. This partly 
accounted for the long delay of the 
states in accepting the " Arti- 
cles," which went into force in 
1 78 1. They did not give the 
government much power. The 
" United States " was still little 
more than a name. The powers 
which the states consented to 
give the government of the Con- 
federation were exercised by a 
Congress similar to the Conti- 
nental Congress. The delegates 
had such a horror of kings that they did not'even provide for 
a president. 

The formation of these new governments marks an epoch 
in the history of the world. The rights of the people were 
more carefully guarded than by any other governments 
that had ever existed. The work which John Adams, 
John Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ben- 
jamin Franklin, and other leaders did in the Continental 
Congress and in the state conventions was as important as 
the work of Washington's army in the field. Among the 
ablest was John Adams. No man had more good ideas on 
constitution making. No one worked harder for the com- 
mon good. He was busy from four o'clock in the morn- 




John Dickinson 
After Peak's portrait in Independ- 
ence Hall, Philadelphia 



164 THE BIRTH OF A NEW NATION 

ing until ten at night, and earned the title of the " States- 
man of the Revolution." 

Chances of Success. — The colonists had two very differ- 
ent tasks. It was one thing to make over their colonial gov- 
ernments and suit them to new conditions. It was another 
to win their independence on the battle held. More than 
once as the Revolutionary War went on the chances of final 
success seemed against the colonists. The mother country 
had nearly all the advantages. She possessed a strong war 
fleet. Her army, though small, was well trained. Her gov- 
ernment owed a great deal of money, but had no difficulty in 
borrowing more, because it always paid its debts. 

The course of the war was influenced by the geographical 
situation, which gave the colonists one great advantage. 
This was their distance from England. In those days the 
voyage across the ocean took about six weeks, sometimes 
more than twice as long. Often an entire season passed be- 
fore England could send needed supplies or reinforcements 
to her armies. Furthermore, the colonies were stretched out 
in a straggling line over 1,300 miles between the sea and the 
mountains. The mountain barriers offered them a safe re- 
treat in case their armies were hard pressed. This was 
another advantage-. 

For the British, the sea was naturally the base of opera- 
tions, that is, the place from which all expeditions started. 
On the sea they could assemble at any time a fleet of war 
ships and transports strong enough to carry the army any- 
where up and down the long coast. If their army marching 
inland was defeated or seriously threatened, it could hastily 
return to the coast, reorganize, and start again. By such 
waterways as Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River their 
ships could go far into the interior. The Hudson and Cham- 
plain valleys together almost made a highway from New York 
to Canada, where the colonists had not risen in revolt. These 
valleys also separated one group of colonies from another. 

Capture of New York. — New York, lying at the gateway 
of the Hudson and possessing an excellent harbor, was 



WASHINGTON'S VICTORY AT TRENTON 165 

marked by nature as the place which a sea-power like Great 
Britain would attempt to seize. If captured, it would be- 
come the center from which to carry on the work of subduing 
the rebellious colonists. Before General Howe's reinforce- 
ments reached him at Halifax and he was ready to sail to New 
York, an attempt was made by the British to gain a foothold 
at Charleston, South Carolina, near the southern end of the 
colonial line. The attack was beaten off. In August, 1776, 
Howe appeared before New York. His army was larger, 
better equipped, and better disciplined than Washington's 
army. In a series of battles beginning on Brooklyn Heights 
and ending at Fort Washington, at the northern end of 
Manhattan Island, the colonial army was defeated and 
forced to retreat into New Jersey. 

Washington finally took refuge behind the Delaware River. 
As winter came on his army, half-starved and scantily 
clothed, dwindled away. Only about 6,000 disheartened 
soldiers remained. Alarmed at the approach of the British, 
Congress withdrew from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Many 
of the Philadelphians hid their money and silver and sent 
their families into the country. Their fears were needless, 
for General Howe, on December 13, ordered his army into 
winter quarters in different New Jersey towns. He went 
back to New York to spend the holidays among loyalist 
friends. Some of the British thought that the war was over 
and began to talk of returning to England. 

Washington's Victory at Trenton. — A part of Howe's 
army was stationed at Trenton. It was made up of Germans, 
hired of their prince, the ruler of Hesse-Cassel, for $36 apiece. 
Washington formed a plan to capture them. He crossed the 
Delaware eight or nine miles above Trenton on Christmas 
night. The passage was difficult and dangerous because of 
the ice, and a part of his troops did not succeed in crossing 
at all. After they reached the eastern bank the soldiers 
marched on in the blinding storm. " The snow," writes 
one, " was tinged here and there with blood from the feet of 
the men who wore broken shoes." In the early morning 



166 THE BIRTH OF A NEW NATION 

Trenton was surrendered, and about one thousand Hessians 
were taken prisoners. Not an American was killed. It was 
a victory which put new courage into the army and raised 
the hopes of the colonists again. 

Princeton. — Washington gave the British another sur- 
prise a week later. Alarmed by the capture of the Hessians, 
Howe ordered General Cornwallis to unite the different bodies 
of troops. Meanwhile Washington, who had first returned to 
Philadelphia with his prisoners, had crossed the Delaware 
again. On January 2 Cornwallis thought that he had caught 
Washington with his back to the river, which it was im- 
possible to recross in the presence of a hostile army. Corn- 
wallis exclaimed, " At last we have run down the old fox, 
and we will bag him in the morning." Instead, Washington, 
leaving his campfires burning to deceive the British, marched 
around their lines toward Princeton. At Princeton he put 
to flight three regiments of British on their way to join Corn- 
wallis, and took many prisoners. 

At daybreak Cornwallis faced an empty camp, while the 
booming of cannon in the direction of Princteon revealed to 
him the game that the " old fox " had played. Washington 
marched to the hills about Morristown, and the British con- 
cluded that it was wise to withdraw toward the Hudson. 
Few events have had a greater influence than the small battles 
at Trenton and Princeton. No one, in America or Europe, 
any longer doubted the skill and courage of the commander 
who could accomplish such wonders with a broken army. 

The Campaign of 1777. General Howe had large plans 
for 1777. If the government gave him the reenforccments 
for which he asked, he would have 35,000 soldiers. These 
would be enough for two important expeditions. One would 
march toward Boston from Newport, in Rhode Island, which 
had been seized the fall before. The other would march 
upon Philadelphia, and, perhaps, after taking that, enter 
Virginia. But the government could not furnish the troops. 
The best it could do was to give him 8,000 of the soldiers 
who had been sent to Canada after the colonists had attacked 




REFERENCE MAP FOR THE REVOLUTION 
NORTHERN AND MIDDLE STATES 



BURGOYNE'S EXPEDITION 



167 



Quebec. The safest way would have been to transport them 
by sea, but the government feared that the colonists would 
take advantage of their absence to make another attack 
on Canada. It was decided, therefore, that they should 
attempt to reach New York by the Champlain, Hudson, and 
Mohawk valleys. 

Burgoyne's Expedition. — The expedition from Canada 
was led by Sir John Burgoyne. He expected General Howe 
to send a force 
up the Hudson 
to meet him, 
but letters went 
so slowly in 




Map of New York, 

New Jersey, and 

Pennsylvania 

those days that before General Howe learned of the govern- 
ment's final plans he had left New York by sea, and was 
nearing the head of Chesapeake Bay, from which he intended 
to march on Philadelphia. He could not now turn back, and 
so Burgoyne was left to carry out the other plan alone. 

Burgoyne set out in June, 1777. He advanced by Lake 
Champlain, and easily took Ticonderoga, the frontier fortress 
of northern New York. All went well until August, when 
the army began to cross the portage from Lake George to 



i68 THE BIRTH OF A NEW NATION 

the Hudson River. General Schuyler, who commanded the 
colonial forces in New York, blocked the roads in every direc- 
tion with fallen trees; he choked the rivers with earth and 
trees until they were impassable for boats with supplies ; and 
he drove off the sheep and cattle. All food was destroyed 
or carted away. 

A British army, made up partly of Canadians, loyalists, and 
Indians, tried to join Burgoyne by way of the Mohawk Valley, 
but the German settlers drove it back with the help of a force 
under Benedict Arnold that had been sent by the colonial 
army. Another force of 1,000 men Burgoyne, in desperate 
need of supplies, sent to Bennington, Vermont. This army 
was almost totally destroyed by John Stark's New Hampshire 
minute-men and their neighbors, the " Green Mountain Boys." 

On October 17, 1777, near Saratoga, Burgoyne surrendered, 
though not until he had made several desperate efforts to 
fight his way out of the trap. His army, of which 6,000 men 
remained, half of them Germans, became prisoners. All 
sorts of supplies also fell into the hands of the colonial troops. 
The capture of an entire British army filled the colonists with 
enthusiastic hopes. It encouraged the enemies of Great 
Britain in Europe. The credit of the victory belonged to 
General Schuyler, but it was given to General Gates, whom 
Congress had placed in command before the campaign ended. 

Capture of Philadelphia. — Meanwhile General Howe had 
succeeded in his campaign against Philadelphia. He had 
begun his march from the head of Chesapeake Bay about the 
first of September. Washington attempted to check him at 
Brandy wine Creek, but was badly defeated. Yet he after- 
ward managed his army so well that it took Howe two weeks 
to march the last twenty-six miles. Philadelphia was occupied 
September 26. It was now too late to go to Burgoyne's re- 
lief. In 1777 the British took a city and lost an army. 

Questions 

1. What did the colonists think in 1775 about separation from 
England? What things changed their minds by 1776? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 



169 




2. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? What did it 
say? Who opposed independence, and why? 

3. Why did the colonists have to make over their governments? 
Why did the people of Connecticut and Rhode Island need to make 
fewer changes in government ? 

4. What did the colonists put in their constitutions ? Why did 
they take many powers away from their governors and give them to the 
legislatures ? Why did they fix short terms for their legislators ? 
What old-world customs did they keep out? 

5. Why was the task of Congress in mak- 
ing a frame of government harder than that 
of the states ? Why did the delegates in Con- 
gress give the new government of the "United 
States" so little power? Why did they not 
provide for a president ? 

6. What advantages did the British have 
in the Revolution? What two advantages 
were on the side of the colonists ? 

7. What region did the British seize before 
the end of 1776 which made up for the loss 
of Boston in March ? Why were the small 
battles of Trenton and Princeton of great im- 
portance to the colonists ? 

8. What was General Howe's plan for 
1777? Why was General Burgoyne sent from Canada to New York? 
Why was he sent by the Champlain-Hudson route ? 

9. Why did not General Howe help Burgoyne more? How was 
Burgoyne captured ? 

10. What had the British gained in 1777 ? What had they lost ? 

Exercises 

1. Make a list of the arguments that leaders like John Adams and 
Thomas Paine gave for complete separation from Great Britain, and 
another list of the arguments that the loyalists used against the step. 

2. Find out from one who knows whether the frame of government 
of the states today resembles that made during the Revolution, and in 
what way it differs. 

3. Make out a list of the gains of each side during the years 1775, 
1776, and 1777. 

Important Dates: 

1776. July 4. The Declaration of Independence. 

1776. December 26. The Battle of Trenton. 

1777. September 26. Howe enters Philadelphia. 

1777. October 17. The surrender of General Burgoyne. 



The Liberty Bell 

In Independence Hall, 

Philadelphia 



CHAPTER XVI 



LIFE IN WAR TIME 

What the War did not do. — The Revolutionary War 
lasted seven years and yet few regions in the colonies saw 
an army of either friend or foe. The march to Concord 
or to Bennington was the longest expedition the British 

made in New England. 
They ravaged one or two 
Connecticut towns, burned 
Falmouth, Maine, and oc- 
cupied Newport, and that 
was all the New Englanders 
saw of them after Boston 
was abandoned. 

Until 1780 life on the Vir- 
ginia plantations went on as 
usual, except that it was 
harder to market tobacco. 
The same is true of the colo- 
nies farther south. New 
Jersey and the Hudson River 
Valley suffered most. Even 
there the mischief was com- 
monly done by bands of 
patriots or of loyalists deter- 
mined to bring destruction upon one another. The pres- 
ence of the British army did not always mean ruin to a 
neighborhood, for the ofheers frequently paid the farmers 
in gold and silver for the meat, flour, and vegetables which 
they brought into camp. While General Howe's army was 
quartered in Philadelphia the farmers of eastern Pennsylvania 
had no trouble in selling their produce at good prices. 

170 



• • In iidumci 

GEORGE WASHINGTON. Esquire. 

GENER.Al.aitd COMMANDER* CHIEF d ihi Faaci. 
aw* llaa UatTao Statu or Attiici. 

BY Virtue of the Power and Direction to Me erpe- 
cially given, 1 hereby enjoin and require all Perfon* 
reGding within feventy Milea of my Held Quarter* to 
threfli one Half of iheir Grain by Uie if! Day of February, 
and the other Half by the ift Day of March next enfiung, 
on Pain, in Cafe of Fadure, of having all that (hall re- 
main in Sheavjs after the Period above mentioned, (card 
by the Commiffariet and Quartrr-Maftcrs of the Army, 
and paid for u Straw. 

GIVEN wider mf Hand, at Head Quarters, nejr 
the Valley Forge, is Philadelphia County, thii loth 
Day of Decemher, 1777. 

C. WASHINGTON. 
By His Excellency '1 Command, 
Robixi H. Hakkijom, Sec'y. 

LalCHTll. rwrw - JOHN OVNLlt 

Washington's Orders to the 

Farmers Living near V.m.i.ey 

Forge 



VALLEY FORGE 



171 




Washington's Headquarters at Valley 
Forge 



Army Supplies. — The armies were likely to suffer for food 
as soon as they moved far from the waterways. The coun- 
try was thinly settled and little food could be found in any 
one region. The roads were poor and there were few wagons. 
In 1778 a cargo of clothing, sorely needed by the colonial 
soldiers, reached a 
port in North Car- 
olina, but it was 
necessary to send 
to Pennsylvania for 
wagons. The next 
year Philadelphia 
had more flour than 
it could sell, while 
Washington's sol- 
diers in eastern 
New Jersey and 
on the Hudson were starving. One difficulty was that the 
officers whom Congress put in charge of supplies did not un- 
derstand how to manage the matter. 

Valley Forge. — This partly accounts for the sufferings 
of Washington's army while Howe occupied Philadelphia. 
Washington's camp was at Valley Forge, a village twenty- 
five miles northwest of the city. The soldiers lived in huts 
such as frontiersmen usually built, but they. were in want of 
blankets, clothing, shoes, and even food. About Christmas 
Washington wrote to Congress that 2,898 men were unfit 
for duty because of lack of clothing. Many whose shoes 
had worn out cut blankets into strips and wound these 
around their feet. Sometimes the only food they had was 
dough baked in their fireplaces. Washington was surprised 
that his soldiers did not all abandon him. Indeed 2,300 did 
desert and joined the British army in Philadelphia, where 
they were sure of food. Others went home. At the close 
of the winter only 5,000 remained. 

Paper Money. — One reason why General Howe could 
obtain plenty of food for his army, while Washington's sol- 



172 



LIFE IN WAR TIME 



diets were on the verge of starvation, was that the British 
(•mid pay in gold and silver. Washington was not so for- 
tunate. Congress could not raise enough money by taxation 
and tried to pay expenses with paper money, as the colonies 
had done many times before. The states also issued paper 
money. This money sometimes lost a tenth of its value in 
a single month. Prices as a result rose rapidly, in 1781 a 






*.' ^v'^Tfc^^J^'. 



fiftONE SIXTH of a 
DOLLAR 

to a ftcf°l u -\/$/\ „ \\ vSA 

M\tiontfCoN-' "" 

MiC R ess, paf- 

^Jcd at Phi- 
ladelphia, 
February 17, 1776. 

%ONE SIXTH. % 

7)x k £fflW4!* f ..*'2*™z*$ 




3r*^S5i<!»/<»^5 ***** 
%One Sixth of a Dollar. 




^Printed by Hall & Sellers^ 
$ in Philadelphia 1776. § 



Back 



Paper Money of the Revolution 

Reduced facsimile 

pair of shoes cost Si 00 in paper money, a bushel of potatoes 
S24, a bushel of corn $40, and a cow $1,200. It is not 
surprising that the Pennsylvania farmers were ready to 
exchange their products for British gold. 

Industries during the War. — The demand for hats, cloths, 
and steel increased because trade with Europe was either cut 
off or was carried on with difficulty. Most people dressed in 
homespun, as they had done in the earlier time. Makers of 
guns, saddles, and powder were kept busy. Towns like Spring- 
field, Massachusetts, and Waterbury, Connecticut, became 
famous for gun making. At the Principio Iron Works in 
Maryland cannon balls were cast for the Continental army. Tt 



INDUSTRIES DURING THE WAR 173 

was very difficult to obtain enough salt, since the supply from 
Europe was interrupted. The salt wells near Syracuse, New 
York, were known, but salt from them was not marketed until 
several years later. Under the circumstances it was neces- 
sary to evaporate sea water. For this purpose tanks were 
constructed at New Bedford and on Cape Cod. 

Women's Work. — In war work the women naturally took 
a large share. Since workshops were in the home few knew 
how often the women took the place of the absent men. 
They turned with one accord to the production of enough cloth 
to supply all needs of the country. They knitted and sewed 
for their families and for the army. Those who lived at the 
time tell how the farmer's wives and daughters did the heavy 
work of the field also that there might be food. Women's 
committees went from house to house to raise money to 
buy comforts for the soldiers. An old history of the Revo- 
lution says the American women " had not earrings and 
bracelets to give in imitation of the Roman ladies on a like 
occasion, but they presented gold and silver and what share 
of the paper money had come into their hands." They 
wore their old dresses ; they went without luxuries. When 
the doctors at the army hospitals called for lint and dry herbs 
" for baths and fomentations . . . particularly balm, hyssop, 
wormwood and mallows " the women supplied their wants. 
They responded, too, to the call for nurses. Elizabeth Jack- 
son's three sons joined the army when the war came to the 
frontier of the Carolinas. The two elder sons were killed. 
The youngest, Andrew, then only 13 years of age, was taken 
prisoner. The father had died before the Revolution. The 
mother now left alone joined a heroic band of women who 
went to nurse Americans on British prison ships in Charles- 
ton Harbor. She was stricken with prison fever and died. 

Sufferings of the Loyalists. — The Revolution was a civil 
war for two reasons. In the first place, English colonists 
were fighting against Englishmen from the mother country. 
In the second place, the colonists were fighting against one 
another. Before the war was ended nearly 50,000 colonists 



T 74 



LIFE I\ WAR TIME 



v 



served on the British side either as militia or as regular sol- 
diers. Some in small bands, especially in South Carolina 
and Georgia, waged war with their neighbors. Such bands, 
whether of loyalists or patriots, were more cruel than the 
regular troops of cither side. 

In the end the loyalists lost nearly everything they owned. 
Their lands were seized by the states and commonly used to 

reward the Continental sol- 
diers. In many regions they 
were fortunate if they es- 
caped being tarred and 
feathered. 

Exiles in Canada. — Many 
of the loyalists were driven 
into exile. They went prin- 
cipally to Nova Scotia or to 
the western part of the pro- 
vince of Quebec. The Brit- 
ish government treated them 
generously, giving heads of 
families 500 acres of land 
and single men 300. They 
were also given tools with 
which to work. 

Two Other Migrations. — 
During the war there were 
( )ne was from the coast towns to the 
The trade of many coast towns was 




Tory Refugees on Their W.w 
to Canada 

Hunted by their neighbors thousands 
sought refuge in Canada, taking with 
them only a small store of clothing and 
household art i< le 



two other migrations, 
interior of the states. 
ruined by the nearness of British ships, cruising off shore 
Oil the watch for colonial vessels. A part of their inhab- 
itants were obliged to find employment elsewhere. Others 
moved to safer places, taking their industries with them. 
The result was, as a French traveler remarked, that the 
colonists gained not only freedom, but a more even spread of 

their population. 

The second migration was more important. It passed 
over the mountains into the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. 






KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 



175 



Its beginnings go back to the French and Indian War. 
Hunters and trappers paid little attention to the rule of the 
British government concerning the great Indian territory west 
of the Appalachians. 1 Three mountain trails led from the 
older settlements toward the west. One was Braddock's road 
to Pittsburgh. Another led to the " blue grass " region of 
Kentucky through Cumberland Gap, where Virginia, Tennes- 
see, and Kentucky now meet . The third followed the Holston 
River or the French Broad into the valley of the Tennessee. 
The story of the pioneers who crossed the mountains, espe- 
cially that of Daniel Boone, the greatest of frontier hunters 
and fighters, is thrilling. 




Cumberland Gap 



Beginnings of Kentucky. — In 1769 Boone explored the 
trail through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, then a part 
of Virginia. The colonial assembly planned to make it the 
regular highway into their western lands, but it long remained 
simply a path. In 1774 James Harrod and thirty compan- 
ions laid out Harrodsburg on the Kentucky River, and the 
year following Boone founded Boonesborough near by. 
Each settler marked off his own farm. The land was plenti- 
ful and it made little difference whether he took 400 or 1 ,000 
acres. Most of the early settlers in Kentucky depended upon 
hunting and trapping to obtain furs, which they sold in 
the colonies or states. 

1 See page 132. 



176 



LIFE IN WAR TIME 



Tennessee. — The story of early Tennessee was similar. 
In 1769 a family settled on Watauga Creek in eastern Ten- 
nessee. In 1 770 James Robertson, whom the people of Ten- 
nessee like to call the "father" of their state, settled in the 
same region. Many others soon joined the new settlements. 

The Revolutionary War, instead of delaying the growth 
of the western settlements, helped them. Many colonists, 
leaving the regions threatened by war, took their way over the 
mountains. The great danger came from Indian attacks 








)»JiEW YORK 






\C umberl« 




,^^_ 1 ; .--v^ 



p w N O, R J H C A F IO,L I N A^,| 

/ SOUTH CAROLINAX 



Mountain Trails and the Western Country 

supported by the British garrison at Detroit or at other posts 
taken from France in 1763. The Indians did not require 
urging, for the settlers were invading their hunting grounds. 

Wyoming Massacre. — The frontiersmen of Pennsylvania 
and New York suffered the most. Indians fell upon the 
settlements in the Wyoming Valley, where the Susquehanna 
River breaks through the mountains of northern Pennsyl- 
vania. The Indians drove from the valley those whom they 
did not kill, burned their homes, and laid waste their fields. 

The people of the frontier were obliged to protect them- 
selves. Washington could not spare any of his troops. The 
struggle was especially fierce in 1777 and 1778. The Indian, 



THE CONQUEROR OF THE NORTHWEST 



177 




like the white man, was fighting for his home. Both used the 
knife, the tomahawk, and the gun. Their warfare was more 
cruel than even that of loyalists and patriots near the coast. 

The Conqueror of the Northwest. — In 1 778 George Rogers 
Clark, one of the greatest hunters and Indian fighters in Ken- 
tucky, formed the plan of driv- 
ing the British garrisons out of 
the Northwest ; that is, from the 
region lying between the Ohio 
River and the Great Lakes. 
Clark thought it was time to 
attack the real enemy behind the 
Indian. He gathered a small 
force of Indian fighters, mostly 
mountaineers and hunters, from 
the western part of Virginia. 
Governor Patrick Henry of 
Virginia encouraged him with 
money and good words. 

In May, 1778, Clark's little 
army of 150 men boarded several flat-boats and rowed or 
drifted down the Ohio River. Nearly opposite the Ten- 
nessee River, Clark landed and led his force northward across 
the level plains to the old French villages in Illinois. He 
reached the first, Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi River, on the 
evening of July 4, 1778, surprised the unsuspecting garrison, 
and occupied the town. It proved easy to induce the French 
to accept American rule, particularly since Clark could tell 
them, what they had not yet heard, that the French king 
had recently become the ally of the United States. Some 
of the adventurous young Frenchmen joined Clark's force. 
The Indians, who called him the " Big Knife Chief," were 
overawed by the union of Americans and French and ceased 
to oppose him. 

Clark's greatest exploit was the recapture of Fort Vin- 
cennes on the Wabash, which the British commander at 
Detroit had seized in the preceding winter. The rivers 



George Rogers Clark 



[ 7 8 



LIFE IN WAR TIME 



were full and the lowlands flooded. Clark's men while on 
their march were often obliged to wade in icy water. 
Sometimes it was up to their chins. He surprised the 

British garrison and 
compelled it to sur- 
render. His success 
not only \ protected 
the settlers on the 
frontier and in Ken- 
tucky, but also gave 
the United States a 
claim to the North- 
west when peace was 
made. For this rea- 
son Clark is called 

A Frontier Settlement— Boones- the conqueror of the 
borough Northwest. 1 




Questions 

1. Whore did the war do great damage? Why did the colonial 
armies suffer from want? Why did the British armies fare better? 

2. Why did Congress use paper money? With what results? 
What new industries were started during the Revolution? 
What war work did the women do? 

How were the loyalists treated ? What did many of them do ? 
Describe three emigrations that went on during the Revolution. 
How did the pioneers in the West live? Why were they in 

great danger ? Who were their leaders ? 

8. What did George Rogers Clark accomplish ? 



Exercises 

1. On an outline map shade the regions that saw British armies 
before 1780. 

2. Visit any museum having Revolutionary relics and describe the 
objects used in everyday life of those da vs. 

1 The region that Clark had seized was nearly as large as the thirteen 
colonies. They contained 341,752 square miles, while the Northwest 
contained 265,878. 



CHAPTER XVII 
HOW THE FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 

Good News from France. — In the winter of 1777-1778 
the outlook for the colonial cause seemed dark. Not only 
was the Continental army at Valley Forge in distress from 
lack of rood and clothing, but a group of officers and mem- 
bers of Congress plotted to get rid of Washington and put 
Gates in his place. Their plan came to nothing, and with 
spring news arrived that on February 6 King Louis XVI of 
France had become the ally of the young republic. 

From the beginning of the troubles between England and 
her colonies the French had looked on with increasing inter- 
est. Many Frenchmen were eager for a chance of revenge 
on account of the losses which their country had suffered in 
the recent war. Others were interested in the cause of the 
colonists. They were ready to cheer on men who claimed the 
right to govern themselves. They admired the Americans 
also because the colonial farmers and planters appeared to 
be living more natural lives than Europeans. In America 
there were no princes or lords. Every man seemed to have 
an equal opportunity to make the most of himself. 

As soon as the war broke out Congress sent agents to the 
countries of Europe, hoping for aid against Great Britain. 
Fortunately one of the commissioners to France was Ben- 
jamin Franklin. His homely sayings in Poor Richard's 
Almanac, his clever inventions, like the stove, and his dis- 
covery, by means of a kite, that lightning is electricity, had 
already made him famous. He was regarded as a scientist 
and a philosopher. His simple manners and dress helped 
win the love of the French, who were growing weary of wigs 
and laces and ruffles. Franklin styles, Franklin caps, Frank- 
lin snuff-boxes, and Franklin walking-sticks became the craze 

179 



180 HOW THE FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 



in Paris. His portraits and busts appeared everywhere, 
until he declared to his daughter that her " father's face 

was as well known as the moon." 

The French first aided the colonies secretly, giving clothing, 
powder, and guns for the Continental army to Franklin or 
the other commissioners. Similar aid was obtained from 
Spain. Besides, several million dollars were lent to the 

United States, to be repaid 
when ] teace was made. Some 
influential officials thought 
the time had now come for 
an attack upon the ancient 
enemy of France. Others 
wished to wait until the colo- 
nial troops gained a decisive 
victory. The news of the 
capture of Burgoyne and his 
army put an end to their 
hesitation, and Louis XVI 
agreed to a treaty of alliance. 
Lafayette and Steuben. — 
Many young Frenchmen had 
already come to America on their own account to help the 
colonists, some in search of adventure or glory, others 
because, like the Americans, they wanted to fight for " lib- 
erty." No other became so famous or gave so much valu- 
able service as the Marquis de Lafayette, a young nobleman 
of great wealth and influential family. Lafayette was 
barely twenty years of age in 1777 when he joined Wash- 
ington's army. He had been educated in a military school 
and was given a high rank in the Continental army. He 
generously served without pay. Washington came to love 
him as if he were a son. His name is still remembered with 
affection by Americans. 

Another foreigner who was of much assistance was Baron 
Steuben, a Prussian nobleman. Steuben was an experienced 
officer, having served long under Frederick the Great, the 




Benjamin Franklin 
After the portrait by Duplessis, 17S3 



VALUE OF THE FRENCH ALLIANCE 



most famous general of the time. During the dreary winter 
at Valley Forge Steuben trained the soldiers in the European 
mode of fighting. Two Polish nobles also fought bravely 
for the cause — Kosciuszko, who helped win the victory 
over Burgoyne, and Pulaski, who died fighting at the head 
of his troops in the attempt to recapture Savannah. 

Value of the French Alliance. — The French strengthened 
the colonists on the sea, where they were weakest. Ever 
since the disasters of the French 
and Indian War, France had 
been busy rebuilding her ruined 
fleet. In 1778 she had nearly 
as many battle-ships as Eng- 
land. A year later the French 
persuaded the Spaniards, who 
desired to recover Gibraltar, to 
join them in the war, and then 
their united fleets were able to 
dispute the mastery of the seas 
with the British. From 1778, 
and especially from 1779, the 
English were too busy defend- 
ing their colonies in the West 
Indies and in the East Indies, 
and their fortress of Gibraltar at the entrance of the Medi- 
terranean, to give the greatest part of their attention to the 
war in America. 

As soon as the British government knew that war with 
France was certain, General Clinton, who had taken Howe's 
place at Philadelphia, was ordered to return to New York and 
to send 8,000 of his troops to the West Indies to attempt the 
conquest of the French islands. Washington pursued the 
British, attacked them at Monmouth, and hastened their 
retreat. He then encamped at White Plains, near New 
York. He was not strong enough to attack the city. A 
French fleet appeared off the coast, but did not attempt to 
force an entrance to the harbor. It finally sailed for the 




Marquis de Lafayette 
After a French engraving of his time 



[8a Hu\V THE FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 

West Indies after a storm had prevented an attack upon 
Newport. General Clinton, however, soon withdrew the 
Newport garrison to New York. 

New Enemies of Great Britain. — Before long the British 
government added to the number of its enemies. British 
war ships claimed the right to search the merchant ships of 
other countries in order to see if the)' were supplying the 
enemy with powder, guns, or anything else needed in war. 
In doing this they paid so little attention to the rights of 
other nations that the Dutch, the Danes, the Prussians, the 
Swedes, and the Russians prepared to resist by force. With 
the Dutch the quarrel led to war. 

All this was fortunate for Washington and the colonial 
cause. Congress and the army were in a desperate situation. 
The paper money was fast losing its value. Another mis- 
fortune added to Washington's trials. Benedict Arnold, 
one of the ablest and bravest of his officers, whom he had 
trusted as a friend, went over to the British. What made 
Arnold's treachery still blacker was his attempt to betray 
the fortifications at West Point, the strongest position on the 
Hudson. His plans were discovered in time to save West 
Point, but he escaped to New York. He served under the 
British flag until the end of the war, ravaging parts of Con- 
necticut and Virginia, and making his name a by-word 
among his fellow countrymen. 

Exploits on the Sea. — The only war ships that the Ameri- 
cans possessed were remodeled merchant vessels. No one of 
them was large enough to engage in battle with an English 
ship-of-the-linc. The British fleet soon drove from the sea 
the few ships that Congress had armed. If the control of 
the Atlantic Ocean as a base of operations was to be taken 
from the British, it must be by the French fleets. 

The hero of the greatest exploit of the little colonial navy 
was John Paul Jones. In 1779 the French king lent Jones a 
large remodeled merchant vessel, in order that he might 
attack British merchant ships as they were entering or leav- 
ing their home ports. Jones called his ship the Bon Homme 



EXPLOITS ON THE SEA 



183 



Richard, in honor of his friend Franklin and Franklin's 
famous almanac. 

In September, 1779, the Richard had a terrible fight with 
the British frigate 1 Serapis near the mouth of the Humber 
River, on the eastern coast of England. The Serapis was 
stronger and swifter. The only chance of victory for Jones 
was to close with his enemy and lash the two ships to- 
gether. This he did after the Bon Homme Richard was on 
fire. His men then boarded the 
Serapis and compelled the British 
to surrender. The Richard was now 
sinking, and Jones transferred his 
crew and those who had been 
wounded to the Serapis. A few 
hours later the Richard sank, carry- 
ing down the brave men who had 
fallen in the struggle. 

Commerce. — The war did not 
put an end to foreign trade of the 
United States. It did make it diffi- 
cult because British cruisers haunted 
the American coast in search of 
merchant ships. The trade must 
have continued in spite of them, for in the first four years of 
the war the English captured over 500 vessels, most of them 
near the coast. About 200 were engaged in trade with 
Europe or the West Indies. American merchants often 
armed their vessels, receiving from Congress letters authoriz- 
ing them to capture vessels of the enemy. These armed 
ships owned by private persons were called privateers. They 
scoured the seas for English merchant vessels, which they 
took to Europe for sale. They captured 3 20 merchant vessels 
in 1777 alone. They also carried cargoes. With the money 
so obtained they bought European goods needed in the states. 

After the French and Dutch both became enemies of Eng- 

1 A ship-of- the- line is a battle-ship. A frigate was smaller, carrying 
■28 to 44 guns. The Serapis carried 44. 




John Paul Jones 

After the etching by A. Varen 



iS 4 IloW THE FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 

land the trade with the French and Dutch West Indies was 
especially lively. The Dutch were glad to exchange salt- 
peter, from which powder was made, for Virginia tobacco. 
If the mouth of Chesapeake Bay was too closely watched by 
British cruisers, the tobacco was hauled in wagons to the 
North Carolina coast, and shipped from there to the West 
Indies. In 1781, when the British admiral captured the 
Dutch island of St. Eustatia, he found hogsheads of tobacco 
and casks of rice piled up on the shore by the hundred. 
Some of this tobacco was owned by British merchants who 
were making money rapidly in trading with the "rebels." 
Within four years twenty-four million pounds of Chesapeake 
tobacco found their way to the English market. From 1779 
until the war closed trade with Europe brought to the states 
nearly all the commodities they needed. Travelers were 
astonished to see that the colonists were prospering in spite 
of the war. 

War in the South, 1778-1781.-111 1778 Clinton took 
advantage of the absence of the French fleet in the West 
Indies to shift the war to the southern states. Washington 
could not send the southern patriots much help. For a 
time the British had things their own way in Georgia and 
South Carolina. They took Savannah in 1778, and Charles- 
ton in 1780. The revolutionary army in these states was 
either captured or broken up. 

The conquest of the Carolinas was far from complete, as 
Major Ferguson, commander of the best loyalist regiment in 
the British service, learned to his cost. Within a few weeks 
after a Continental army under General Gates had been dis- 
persed at Camden, Ferguson ventured into the mountains. 
The settlers assembled quickly under the leadership of 
Sevier and other pioneers, surrounded Ferguson at King's 
Mountain October 7, 1780, and killed or captured his whole 
force. 

Marion, Pickens, and Sumter. — Other fearless patriots 
like Francis Marion, Andrew Pickens, and Thomas Sumter 
kept the flame of revolution burning in the South. They 




REFERENCE MAF- FOH THE DEVOLUTION 
SOUTHERN STATIS' 



CORNWALLIS IN VIRGINIA 



i8 5 



formed small bands of volunteers, who came and went as 
they wished, and served at their own expense. Their men 
were wretchedly equipped and clothed, but full of zeal and 
patriotism. Such a band would lie hidden in the deep forests 
and mountain valleys until an opportunity came to surprise 
a party of British foragers or their loyalist allies. Marks- 
men then stealthily approached the British camps and shot 
the soldiers as they went about their ordinary pursuits. It 
was a new kind of 
warfare and greatly 
annoyed the British. 
Cornwallis, who was 
in command of the 
British army at the 
South, wrote home 
calling Sumter " the 
greatest plague in the 
country." " But for 
Sumter|and Marion," 
he said, " South Car- 
olina would be at 







Guilforik. 

ourl House 'it- 




DEr G E AT S E D N ;q' ^a\r o 

CI" * .1—'. Charlotte 
The'CowpenS..*. U. 

■ Ninety Sixv. Camden?^ 
CAROLINA 



cornwallis's wandering campaign 
at the South 
peace." 

What Greene accomplished. — After the defeat of Gates, 
Washington sent Nathaniel Greene, his best general, with a 
small army to the Carolinas. Although Morgan, one of his 
officers, promptly broke up a British force at Cowpens and 
Greene himself checked Cornwallis at Guilford Court House, 
his army was not strong enough to defeat the British in open 
battle. But the result of his skillful management was that 
Cornwallis was obliged to withdraw to the coast to obtain 
supplies and reinforcements. 

Cornwallis in Virginia. — In the spring of 1781 Corn- 
wallis abandoned the half -finished conquest of the Carolinas 
and marched into Virginia, which he regarded as the center 
of colonial resistance. If Virginia were subdued, he thought, 
the king's authority would again be respected. Already a 
British force was fighting in Virginia against a Continental 



iS6 HOW THE FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 




army under Lafayette. While Cornwallis marched north- 
ward, Greene began a campaign which ended in the recovery 
of the Carolinas and Georgia. British garrisons held only 
Charleston and Savannah. 

The Allies plan to capture Cornwallis. — Meanwhile a 
French army of 5,500 soldiers, led by excellent officers and 
commanded by the Count de Rochambeau, had reached 
America. In the winter of 1 779-1 780 Lafayette had visited 

France and had 
persuaded the 
king to send this 
aid. Washing- 
ton wished the 
French army and 
the French fleet 
to unite with him 
in an attack on 
New York, but 
Rochambeau 
thought this too 
difficult. Corn- 
wallis's appearance in Virginia seemed to oiler a better chance 
of success. Word was received from the Count de Grasse, 
commander of a large French fleet in the West Indies, that he 
would be on the coast of Virginia by September 1, 1781. 

Cornwallis had fortified Yorktown, from which he expected 
to keep open communication by sea with New York. York- 
town would thus serve as a starting point for the conquest of 
Virginia. Washington and Rochambeau believed that with 
the help of a fleet Cornwallis could be captured before Clin- 
ton could send him aid. Washington left the greater part of 
his army to watch Clinton at New York, and with Rocham- 
beau crossed New Jersey on the way to Virginia. De Grasse 
kept his promise and by August 29 was on the Virginia coast. 
A British fleet which sailed from New York was so crippled 
in battle with the French that it was obliged to return to 
New York for repairs. Before it had a chance to refit and 



Principal Street of Yorktown 

In the distance is the monument erected in 18 
commemorate the surrender of Cornwallis 



AN INDEPENDENT NATION 



187 



sail to Virginia again, Washington and Rochambeau had 
forced Cornwallis to surrender. On October 19, 1781, Corn- 
wallis and his army, numbering more than 7,000 men, 
became prisoners of war. 

Overthrow of the King's Friends in England. — The sur- 
render of Cornwallis ended the Revolutionary War. The 
policy of Lord North and of the King was violently attacked 
in the House of 
Commons by Gen- 
eral Conway and 
Charles James Fox, 
men who had al- 
ways been friendly 
to America. They 
were aided by the 
younger William 
Pitt. In March, 
1782, the majority 
of the House voted 
against continuance 
of the war. Lord 
North resigned, and 
a new ministry was 
formed in which 
Conway and Fox 
were leading mem- 
bers. They sent 
word to Franklin in Paris that they were ready to talk about 
terms of peace. They also introduced reforms by which in 
the future it would be more difficult for the King and his 
" Friends " to secure the election of their paid agents and 
thus control the action of parliament. For example, about 
forty useless offices like the King's turnspit were abol- 
ished ; the list of those receiving pensions from the King 
was reduced ; the private expenditures of the King were 
carefully regulated. Pitt planned to strike a still more 
severe blow at the corrupt influence of the King and his 




Sketch Map of Yorktown 

AA = French and American batteries. BB = French 
batteries. C = British redoubt. RRR = French ships 



1 88 HOW THE FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 




supporters by a thorough reorganization of parliamentary 

representation, but that had to wait another half century. 
Such reforms as were passed formed an important step 
toward the freedom of parliament. They had come too 
late to save the thirteen colonies for England. 

An Independent Nation. It was more than a year before 
terms of peace were agreed upon. Tin- interests of France, 

Spain, and Holland, as well 
as of the American stal 
had to be provided for in 
the final agreements. For- 
tunately for Great Britain 
a fleet under Rodney de- 
feated De Grasse in the 
West Indies in the spring 
of 17S2, after which the 
French did not demand 
hard terms of Great Britain. 
According to the treaty 
1 if peace, signed in Paris in 
September, 1783, the inde- 
pendence of the United 
Slates was recognized by 
Greal Britain. The new 
i Kit ion was also to possess 
the region from the Alle- 
ghanies to the Mississippi 
River and from the Great 
Lakes to Florida, although 
the territory north of the Ohio had been included by the 
( fuebec Act in the province of Quebec. The Americans were 
to retain the right to fish off the coasts of Nova Scotia and 
Newfoundland. 

Spain received Florida, which England had possessed for 
twenty years. France gained little bu1 glory from the war, 
although she had added more than $3 00, 000, 000 to her 
national debt. But the French rejoiced that they had hum- 



A GENERAL PEACE 

NE IV- rORK, Marth 15, I 783 

L/CTE hfl Mgtl, an EXPRESS from Netu-Jt'j'jr. 
trngtr lie foUouing sft count. 

THAToo Sur.017 hit, lb. T»n)ty Thi.d InOuii. • Vcff.l .m.fd u 
rh.M.Iph... m Th.nv-fi., D,,, hom C.dii. art Dijfitk- >o 
th. Cfuimnt*/ C/Vi, wlorming them, th.l on McnJ.y th. T-.ni.cth 
Day of January, thr Pati iMis.ait* to 

A GENERAL PEACE, 

Between GrtetBritaim, Frgmct, Spain, J/c//a*S. and the CmuJ Simtt, of 
A-**"*, *ert iiOMicat Ptni, by all the ComtT..lT.onera from tkHc Po»cn , 
inconfeauenevof *h.<h, Hyfliliiin, by Se» and Land, -ere to umji m 
Europe, oo Wednesday the T*cnt.e,h Day of February , and in Amenta, on 
Tburfday the TVentieih Day of March, in the prefent Year One Thoufaod 
Scv<n Hundred and Eighty. Three 

THIS **•> mfm tm * Inielhgnm mm laft Night announced \>] the 
Firing ot Cannon, and great Rejoicmp at Elizabeth Town — Reflecting 
the Particular* ol I fall Imlj mimOtng Event no mn> are yet re coved, but 
ihey aft hourly eipcctcd. 



P*lUP>*Jty J,m« R.viogtot,, f>„mrrrm>,mx Kimg', Mcfl ***** M*,*fr 



Jl/Ulrt KMOONNAVU 






A Broadside Anno, ncing l'i n 1 

Reduced facsimile 



WASHINGTON'S SERVICES 189 

bled their ancient enemy. Many of them rejoiced also at 
the success of their new friends, the Americans. Up to the 
Revolutionary War the colonists had regarded the French as 
relentless foes, who with their Indian allies might fall upon 
the defenceless frontier settlements. Henceforth they were 
remembered as a generous nation which had come to their 
aid when the colonial cause was darkest. 

Washington's Services. — Washington did one more great 
service to his country before he returned to Mount Vernon 
as a private citizen. Both soldiers and officers in the army 




Mount Vernon 
After an old print. As it appeared in Washington's time 

were discontented because Congress had left them unpaid. 
Many men feared that they would refuse to go home now 
that the war was over, but would remain together and take 
by force what they could not obtain peacefully from the 
bankrupt government. It was even whispered about that 
some of them wished to make Washington a king as their 
only hope of fair treatment. When Washington heard of 
this, he was much distressed. He used his influence with the 
officers and with the members of Congress to such good effect 
that a just agreement was made. Soldiers and officers went 
home quietly. 



lyo HOW THi: FRENCH HELPED THE COLONISTS 

Washington now resigned his commission in the army and 
returned to Mount Vernon, from which he had been absent 
more than eight years. He accepted no salary for his serv- 
ices, nor would he take any reward after the war was over, 
although his plantation had suffered from neglect. His 
place was secure in the hearts of his countrymen. With 
him Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and many others were 
gratefully remembered . 

Questions 

1. What causes had the colonists for discouragement in the winter 
of 1777-1778? What news encouraged them? 

2. Why did the French join the colonial cause? In what different 
ways did the French aid the colonies? Why was the coming of 
Lafayette and Steuben particularly fortunate for Washington? 

3. In what way was the French alliance of the greatest value to the 
colonies ? What change did the British make in the conduct of the war 
because of the allian* 

4. What enemies did England make in the course of the Revolution ? 
Why did the Spaniards and Dutch also go to war with England? 
How did England's other wars affect the colonial cause ? 

5. Did the colonies have a navy? What were the privateers doing 
to help the colonial cause? 

6. Tell the story of John Paul Jones's battle with the Serapis. 
How did the Revolution affect the foreign trade of the United St ? 
How did the French alliance affect it ? 

7. Where did Clinton try to carry on the war after 1778? What 
success did he have? Why did he fail to conquer completely the 
southern colonies? What did General Greene accomplish? 

8. What further aid did France give the colonics in 1780? What 
plan did Washington and Rochambeau form ? 

9. Describe the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Why did 
the loss of the army of Cornwallis greatly alarm the British ministers? 
What were they ready to do? How was the King's power in England 
broken, and Parliamentary freedom restored ? 

10. Why did it take nearly two years after the battle of Yorktown 
to arrange the terms of peace? 

11. What did Spain and France gain from their war with Eng- 
land? 

12. What was Washington's service to his country just before 
retiring from the Revolutionary army? 



REVIEW OF THE REVOLUTION 191 

Review of the Revolution 

1754-63. The French and Indian War. Frontiersmen seeking the 
western lands encroached on territory claimed by the French. 
The French lost not only the lands in dispute, but also their 
other American colonies. 

1763-65. England (1) continued her old policy of interfering with the 
freedom of the trade of the colonies, enforcing near the close 
of the French War and afterward laws which had never 
before been enforced in the colonies, (2) attempted to main- 
tain a regular army in the colonies, and (3) passed laws like 
the Stamp Act to raise money for the support of the army. 

1765-75. The colonists resisted the British policy by refusing to trade 
with England, by destroying stamps, burning ships sent to 
enforce the trade laws, and by other means, like throwing 
the tea overboard. 

1768. England punished the colonies by increasing the regular army, 
and in 1774 by closing the port of Boston and taking away 
some of Massachusetts' powers of self-government. 

1774. The colonists at the Continental Congress united in resisting 
such acts, formed a general agreement not to trade with 
England, and prepared for defence if war came. 

I 775- The battles of Lexington and Concord began the war of the 
Revolution. 

1776. The British evacuated Boston and seized New York City. 

Congress set forth a Declaration of Independence and the 
colonies began making permanent state governments. 

1777. The colonial forces captured Burgoyne's army, and the British 

took Philadelphia. During the war the colonies created new 
industries and spread westward. 

1778. George Rogers Clark conquered the Northwest. The French 

formed an alliance with the colonies. 

1779. Spain joined France in the war. 

1780. England also went to war with Holland. Clinton carried the 

American war into the southern colonies. 
A French army landed in America, under Count de Rochambeau, 
to help Washington. 

1 78 1. The United Colonies adopted a constitution, the Articles of 

Confederation. Cornwallis was captured by the combined 
work of Washington, Rochambeau, and the French fleet. 
1783. A treaty of peace was agreed to. Thirteen English colonies 
finally became both united and independent. 



chapter xvrrr 




THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 

Our Country in 1783. — The United States of 1783 was in 
area only aboul one-fourth as large as it is today. More 
than half lay west of the Appalachian Mountains. This part, 
save for a few settlements, was uninhabited by white men. 

Even the region 
cast of the 
mountains was 
thinly settled. 
The greater 
part of the pop- 
ulation lived 
near the coast 
and in the richer 
farming valleys. 
It is impossible 
to say exactly 
how many in- 
habitants the 
country had, for 
no census had 
ever been taken. But probably about 3,250,000 persons 
lived in the United States, not counting 100,000 or 200,000 
Indians. About one-fifth of the people were negro slaves. 

The present state of Pennsylvania has nearly three times as 
many people as the whole United States had in 1783 ; New 
York City has twice as many. The United States was not 
only the youngest but also one of the smallest nations 
in the world. Great Britain, including Ireland, num- 
bered nearly four times as many inhabitants; Spain more 
than three times; and France eight times. 

192 



Our Country in 1783 
Black clots show the settled regions in the United States; 
circles show tlic regions of Canada in settlement; crosses 
show the Spanish settlements; the white shows the unoc- 
cupied territory 



NORTH AMERICAN NEIGHBORS 193 

North American Neighbors. — The neighbors of the 
United States in North America were few. Small English 
settlements existed in Nova Scotia. Possibly 60,000 French 
people lived in the colony of Quebec. About 40,000 loyalists, 
who fled from the United States during the Revolution, 
formed the main part of the population in two new British 
provinces of New Brunswick and Upper Canada. 1 The 
people of the United States looked upon these people as 
living in the " frozen north." 

Spain had five colonies or provinces within what is now 
the United States. These colonies were Florida and Lou- 
isiana on the south and west, some small mission settlements 



Plan of a Spanish Mission Settlement 

in Texas and New Mexico forming the outposts of Mexico, 
and a new colony, California, in the far west. In 1769 a 
party of Spanish missionaries and soldiers had entered Cali- 
fornia and established an Indian mission at San Diego. 
Seven years later they established a mission which was the 
beginning of San Francisco, the great city of the Golden 
Gate. Some pushed on into the interior, and established 
other missions, placing them in fertile valleys where Indian 
tribes might be reached. The good monk, Junipero Serra, 
was at the head of the movement. He gloried even in his 
sufferings as he tramped across terrible deserts or visited 
hostile Indians. 

1 In 1 79 1 Canada was divided into Upper and Lower Canada, which 
were permitted to have provincial assemblies. 



1 94 TIIF DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 



The news that a mission had been founded was received 
in Mexico with rejoicing and the ringing of hells. Proclama- 
tions of the government carried the story to the humblest 
hamlet and even to far-away Spain. The California mis- 
sions, at first simple places of worship and residence for priests 
and their helpers, became in a short time thriving colonies. 
Beautiful buildings were erected, ruins of which may still be 
seen in many places throughout California. Indians were 

persuaded to abandon 
their wandering life 
and settle on the mis- 
sion farms, or work in 
the mission kitchens 
or workshops. Each 
mission was an Indian 
colony with a few 
Spanish missionaries 
and army officers. 

Soldiers stationed 
near the missions were 
almost the only other 
Spaniards. There 
were, however, two or 
three towns for ordinary settlers. Los Angeles was begun 
in 1 781. The total Spanish population in California was 
probably less than a tenth of the Indian population living 
at the missions. The sturdy peasants and skilled laborers 
of Spain did not go there any more than they did to Mexico 
or the West Indies or any other Spanish colony in the New 
World. 

Except along the borders of Florida the settlements of the 
new republic were separated from those of its neighbors by 
vast stretches of unoccupied land. The Spaniards advanc- 
ing into the Southwest and the people of the states moving 
into the Ohio Valley would not come into conflict for many 
years. In reality, however, they were entered upon a new 
. this time for the possession of the Great West. 




The Mission 01 Sam Luis Rev 

The most beautiful of the many Spanish missions 
in California 



DANGER FROM DISUNION 



195 




Danger from Disunion. — In 1783 the danger to the people 
of the states came from their lack of union rather than from 
the rivalry of foreign settlements. As yet they had little 
to do with one another. The roads were few, rudely made, 
without much attempt at grading. The vessels which plied 
from port to port sailed on no regular schedule. Travelers 
ordinarily went on horse- 
back or by stage-coach. 

Several stage-coaches 
made the journey each 
week between Boston and 
New York, New York 
and Philadelphia, Phil- 
adelphia and Baltimore, 
and a few smaller places. 
The coach was really a 
stage-wagon, something 
like the covered light 
wagons in common use 
today. It often took 
three days, starting at 
three o'clock in the morn- 
ing and traveling until 
ten at night, to go from 
Philadelphia to New York, 

or six days from New York to Boston. No bridges spanned 
the large rivers, for the bridge-makers or carpenters of that 
time had not learned how to build long spans. If a river was 
shallow it could be forded ; if wide and deep, the coach could 
be carried across on a ferry boat. Even short journeys were 
full of excitement, hardship, and danger. 

The ordinary man seldom traveled beyond the boundaries 
of his county. The New Englander only on the rarest occa- 
sions traveled south of the Potomac, or the Southerner to 
the North. Dress, social customs, and even uses of words 
and phrases varied in different states. Besides, the Dutch 
in New York, the Germans in Pennsylvania, and the French 



To the PUBL1 C. 

THE FLYING MACHINE, kept Dy 
John Mercereau, at the New Blazing-Star-Feny, 
near New- York, feis off from Powles Hook every Mon. 
day, Wednefday, and Friday Mornings, for Philadelphia, 
and performs the Journey in a Day and a Half, for the 
Summer Seafon, till the iflof November ; from that Time 
to go twice a Week till the firft of May, when they 
again perform it three Times a Week- When the Stages 
go only twice aWeek, they fet off Mondays and Thurf- 
days. The Waggons in Philadelphia fet out from the 
Sign of the George, in Second- flreet, the fame Morning'. 
The Paflengers are defired tocrofsthe Ferry the Evening 
before, as the Stages muff fet off early the next Morning. 
The Price foreach Paflenger is T-wtnty Shillings, Proc- and 
Goods as ufual. Paffengers going Part of the Way to pay 
in Proportion. 

As the Proprietor has made fuch Improvements upon 
the Machines, one of which is in Imitation of a Coach, 
he hopes to merit the Favour of the Publick. 

JOHN MERCEREAU. 

MOTTbrk Oautte IJji 

Stage-Coach Announcement 



io6 THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 



in Detroit and the Illinois country still kept the language 
and ways of their fathers in the Old World. 

Why the People knew so Little of One Another. — The 
newspapers were more enterprising than they had been be- 
fore the war, but they were not distributed through the post- 
offices, and were therefore hard to obtain. The post-oftices 
handled only letters. Postriders carried the little mail 

there was in saddle-bags 
attached to the saddles. 
A pair of saddle-bags was 
enough to carry the mail on 
any trip between New York 
and Philadelphia or Boston 
and New York. People 
living in small towns scl- 
^v^ff^^WLT'^l dom received mail oftener 

than once a week. It was 
harder and much more ex- 
pensive to send a letter to 
many a backwoods or fron- 
tier town than it is today 
to send one into the interior of China. The postriders usu- 
ally left the mail at the town inns. 

Would the Republic endure ? — Many persons wondered 
how long a republic, the parts of which were so loosely con- 
nected with one another, would hold together. It was really 
thirteen republics, for the Continental Congress had little 
power, and this Congress was the only central authority. A 
shrewd Frenchman called the United States " a giant with- 
out bones." He probably meant that the republic had no 
king or nobles to manage its affairs. English people thought 
that the Americans would repent of their separation and 
return to their allegiance to George III. 

What Congress accomplished. — The Congress of the 
Confederation accomplished some things of great value, in 
spite of the fact that it possessed little authority. With the 
aid of Washington it carried the war to a successful ending. 




POSTRIDER OF THE OLDEN TlMl.S 



WHAT CONGRESS ACCOMPLISHED 



197 




Copper Cent Coined in 1783 



Its agents made an advantageous peace with Great Britain. 
When the war, which had furnished the strongest reasons 
for union, was over, Congress kept the states together until 
they became accustomed to united action. What in 1781 
seemed merely a " league of friendship " began to grow into 
a deep and lasting union for the common good. 

A New System of Money. — Even after the close of the 
war seven states issued paper money. Like the earlier issues 
most of this was never redeemed in coin. Paper money was 
the cause of many disputes about the payment of debts. 
Still there was an- 
other difficulty. The 
people used foreign 
silver and gold coins 
in ordinary trade, for 
Congress coined no 
money. These for- 
eign coins — crowns, 
doubloons, guineas, 
Johanneses, moidores, pistoles, shillings, and Spanish dol- 
lars — often varied in value. Many were counterfeited or 
had their edges clipped. Washington said it would soon be 
necessary to carry about scales in order to weigh such coins. 

Although Congress was unable to remedy these evils, it 
provided a system of money in which all coins could be given 
a place or value. The system might be used in planning for 
new coins when a mint was established. It was called the 
decimal system because the cent, the second measure of 
value, was ten times the mill, which was the first ; while the 
dime was ten times the cent ; and the dollar was ten times 
the dime. 

The Northwest Territory. — Congress invented a way of 
managing its western lands which helped to unite the states* 
George Rogers Clark had conquered the lands northwest of 
the Ohio in 1778. The United States had been allowed to 
retain these in the treaty of peace with Great Britain. But 
several old states, Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and 



n,X THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 

Massachusetts, laid claim to the region. Maryland refused 
to join in any union if the others were to keep great tracts 
of western lands. Finally the states that claimed western 
lands gave up most of them. 1 These lands became the com- 
mon territory of all, the first territory of the United States. 

Surveying Lands in the "Northwest." — In 1785 Congress 
adopted a plan of surveying the western lands. Land in the 
old colonies had been loosely and carelessly surveyed. The 
frontier settlers often made their own boundaries by toma- 
hawk marks on the trees. This led to innumerable disputes 
between farmers. It left the lines between farms crooked 
and made many strange-shaped pieces of land which no- 
body wanted. The new way was to survey the western 
territory into squares six miles on a side, called townships, 
and to divide these into smaller squares called sections, one 
mile on a side. These were again divided into smaller squares 
called " quarters," 160 acres in extent. In this plan four 
quarters formed a section, and thirty-six sections a town- 
ship. Each section and township was numbered so that 
any piece of land could be readily located. The land was 
to be sold at $i an acre. 2 Congress promised the settlers to 
give the sixteenth section in every township for the sup- 
port of public schools. 

The Ordinance of 1787. In 1787, Congress provided a 
way of governing the Northwest Territory. Many Revolu- 
tionary soldiers wished to locate within it the lands which 
Congress had promised them. Several offieers belonged to 
the Ohio Company, which was formed to buy land of Con- 
gress and sell it to settlers. Both wished a stable govern- 

1 Connecticut kept back or reserved a tract 120 miles long, lying 
west of Pennsylvania and south of Lake Erie, called the Western 
Reserve. In time Connecticut gave part of this land to its citizens 
who had suffered from British raids during the Revolution and sold 
part to a land company, using the money for the benefit of public 
schools. Virginia also retained, besides the Kentucky region, some 
lands north of the Ohio River, sometimes called the Virginia Military 
Reserve, for its citizens who had served as soldiers in the Revolution. 

» In 1796 the price was raised to $2. 



THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 



199 



ment in the territory, capable of protecting the property of 
the settlers and of deciding disputes between them. Such a 
government was provided by a law called the Ordinance of 
1787. Congress was to appoint a governor and judges to 
rule until the territory numbered 5,000 inhabitants. The 
territory was then to have an assembly of its own. As soon 
as any part of the territory had 60,000 people or more, it was 
to become a state equal in all respects to the older states. 
The new state would also become a part of the union. Con- 
gress promised that the inhabitants should always have 
freedom of religion, right of trial by jury, and free republican 




The Settlement at the "Point" at Marietta in 1790 



state governments. It also declared that no laborers should 
be held as slaves. By the survey act of 1785 and the Ordi- 
nance of 1787 Congress adopted the policy of encouraging 
free laborers, promising them cheap land and political 
equality. 

Beginnings of Ohio. — The Ohio Company immediately 
took advantage of the new plan. It purchased from Con- 
gress several hundred thousand acres in the southeastern 
part of the present state of Ohio. In the spring of 1788 
General Rufus Putnam and a band of New Englanders 
reached the spot where the Muskingum River flows into the 
Ohio River. By the middle of summer many acres of grow- 
ing corn, several log huts, and a block-house marked the prog- 
ress of the new settlement. Out of gratitude to the French 



200 THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 




for aid during the war, the settlers named the village Mari- 
etta, a shortened form of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. 
Another company purchased lands farther down the Ohio, 
including the site of Cincinnati. 

Emigration to the West. — The settlements south of the 
Ohio River, in the present state of Kentucky, were growing 
rapidly. Twelve thousand persons entered the region in a 
single year. Louisville soon became a thriving village. 

Emigrants to the 



Ohio country, 
whether north or 
south of the river, 
crossed the 
mountains in 
covered wagons, 
sleeping in these 
-*\kt at night and cook- 
An Emigrant's Flatboat ing their food by 

the roadside. 
The route led to Pittsburgh, if they were from New England 
or the middle states, and to Wheeling, if from Maryland or 
Virginia. At the bank of the Ohio they obtained fiatboats 
large enough to carry wagons, livestock, and household stuff. 
The current of the river carried them on at the rate of four 
or five miles an hour. When the place was reached to which 
the settlers were going, they used the planks of the boat for 
buildings. 

Distress in the States. — One reason why so many people 
moved to the Ohio country was the distress in the states. 
A sudden change from war to peace is often as ruinous to 
business as a change from peace to war. Industries which 
profited by the war lost the market for their goods. Chan- 
nels of trade which the war opened were closed. Even 
rich men could not obtain money enough to pay their or- 
dinary debts. In 1 7 s s Washington had to pu1 off the tax 
collector because a man who owed him could not pay. Com- 
mon debtors came to look upon judges as their enemies, since 



TRADE AFTER THE WAR 201 

it was the decisions of judges which compelled them to pay- 
or go to jail. In certain Massachusetts towns mobs hindered 
meetings of the courts. Finally the discontented, including 
many debtors from the western part of the state, assembled 
under the leadership of Captain Daniel Shays and attempted 
to capture the arsenal at Springfield. The rioters were soon 
dispersed. The Rhode Island legislature tried to help 
debtors by issuing great quantities of paper money and com- 
pelling creditors to accept the worthless bills. It also threat- 
ened storekeepers with loss of political rights if they did not 
sell their goods at low prices fixed in paper money. 

Trade after the War. — The merchants and ship owners, 
who had been growing rich on the trade with France and 
Spain during the later years of the war, were distressed to 
discover that at its close they could no longer trade with the 
French or Spanish West Indies. The British West Indies 
were also closed, because the Americans were now foreigners. 
The French in the commercial treaty of 1778 had promised 
the Americans only as good treatment as that granted to any 
other foreigners. While the war lasted the French govern- 
ment gave special privileges to American ships in order to 
injure the English, but withdrew these privileges in 1783. 
Fortunately for the American merchants the French planters 
cried out that they were the ones principally hurt, for they 
could no longer get cheap food for their plantation hands. By 
1785, therefore, the French government reopened the trade 
in a few products. The English planters obtained similar 
privileges of trade with the United States, so that by 1786 
the West Indian trade was again on the road to prosperity. 

The stopping of the West Indian trade for two or three 
years made it hard for the American merchants to pay for 
what they bought in Europe and especially in England. 
They had few products except tobacco and rice which they 
could offer in exchange. The English government added to 
the difficulty by insisting that ships could bring no goods 
except those of the state where the ship was owned. A New 
Englander, therefore, could not carry South Carolina rice or 



202 THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 

Virginia tobacco to England. The aim, of course, was to 
give this business to English ships. 

Congress and Trade. — Another difficulty grew out of the 
fact that Congress did not have the right to make rules of 
trade for all the states. Each state had its own set of laws 
and levied such taxes as it pleased on articles which its mer- 
chants bought. States sometimes tried to take vengeance 
on England because the English government treated Ameri- 
can merchants badly. States also taxed articles brought in 
from other states. New Jersey was so angry at the taxes 
New York levied on articles sent to New York that the state 
tried to levy a tax of £30 a month on a little land at Sandy 
Hook which the New Yorkers had bought for a light-house. 

The Mississippi Question. — Still greater dangers arose 
over the navigation of the Mississippi. The lower part of the 
river for 200 miles flowed through Spanish territory. The 
Americans, like the English from 1763 to the Revolution- 
ary War, claimed the right to sail down the Mississippi and 
out into the Gulf of Mexico without interference from the 
Spaniards. But the Spaniards disputed the claim. They 
wanted to check the growth of the western settlements. One 
way to accomplish this was by cutting off the only outlet for 
trade. They therefore offered valuable privileges of trade 
with Spain and the Spanish West Indies, if the United States 
would give up the claim to the use of the lower Mississippi. 
Some men in Congress were ready to obtain trade privileges 
at this price. When the settlers in Kentucky and on the Ten- 
nessee heard of it, they threatened to secede if it were done. 

Need of a Stronger Union. — It had already become clear 
that the states needed a stronger government if they were 
to deal successfully with foreign nations. By 1787 even so 
friendly a government as France thought the republic was 
falling to pieces. The British would not withdraw their 
garrisons from the northern frontier posts. 1 

Congress was unable to collect money enough to pay the 

1 British garrisons still held Detroit, Mackinac, Erie, Niagara, and 
Oswego, though these posts now belonged to the United States. 



NEED OF A STRONGER UNION 203 

ordinary expenses of the government. It was obliged to ask 
the states to send money for such purposes. In 1782 
and 1783 Congress asked for $10,000,000, but received less 
than $1,500,000. Delaware, Georgia, and North Carolina 
paid nothing, while New Hampshire paid $3,000 instead of 
$450,000. 

Questions 

1. Describe the United States in 1783. What neighbors had it? 

2. Why did the Spanish colonies grow slowly? Who made up 
the inhabitants of these? 

3. Upon what new race were the English and Spanish people 
starting as rivals ? Why was the outcome of the race a long way off ? 

4. Why was there danger that the new republic would break up? 
Why did the people of the United States know so little of one another ? 

5 . What did Congress accomplish ? What kind of money was used ? 
Describe the system of money adopted. 

6. What arrangement did Congress and the states make regarding 
the western land claims ? What plan did Congress adopt for the 
survey of these lands ? What plan for the government of the North- 
west Territory ? 

7. What western settlements were formed ? How did the emigrants 
reach the western colonies ? Why -did they leave the old settlements ? 

8. How did the coming of peace after the Revolution affect the trade 
of the colonies ? How did the people secure a profitable foreign trade ? 

9. Why was a stronger union needed ? 

Exercises 

1. On an outline map of the present United States show the parts 
(1) which were already inhabited in 1783, (2) those which belonged to 
the United States, but were vacant, and (3) those held by foreign 
colonies. 

2. Make two lists, one of the good things that the Congress of the 
Confederation accomplished between 1781 and 1789, and another of 
the things that it should have done but could not for want of power. 

3. Describe the present English money system. Would it have 
been better if the United States had kept the money system of the 
mother country ? 

4. Review the story of the Virginia Company's colony at Jamestown 
and compare it with that of the Ohio Company's colony at Marietta. 
Important Date : 

1787. The adoption of the Northwest Ordinance. 



CHAPTER XTX 

STARTING THE NEW GOVERNMENT 

The Philadelphia Convention. — [Disputes aboul trade, 
especially in Chesapeake Bay and along the Potomac River, 
finally convinced thoughtful men that a government strong 
enough to regulate all such matters was necessary. At- 
tempts to settle by conference questions of trade between 
neighboring states like Virginia and Maryland came to 
nothing. A convention of delegates from all the states was 
then called. It met in Philadelphia in May, 1787. 

James Madison, one of the youngest men at the conven- 
tion, had carefully prepared himself beforehand to take a 
leading part in its work. Me had so much to do with making 
the new government that he is often called the " Father of 
the' Constitution." Many other notable men attended the 
Philadelphia convention. Among them were George Wash- 
ington of Virginia, Benjamin Franklin and James Wilson of 
Pennsylvania, and Alexander Hamilton of New York. Some 
great leaders of the day were occupied with other work and 
could not take part in the convention. John Jay had 
charge of foreign affairs and chose to stay at his post. John 
Adams was minister of the United States to England, Thomas 
Jefferson to France. Several well-known men, like Samuel 
Adams and Patrick Henry, were opposed to such a change 
in the government, and were not in the convention. 

Washington was chosen president of the convention. The 
leaders made no attempt to patch the weak spots in the gov- 
ernment of the Confederation. From the beginning they 
were resolved to propose to the people a form of government 
altogether new. One obstacle to success was the fact that no 
two of the thirteen states were of the same size, and yet each 
believed itself as important as any of the rest. The small 

204 



A NEW CONSTITUTION 



205 



states were afraid to be yoked with the large states, for fear 
the latter would outvote and oppress them. A thousand 
imaginary dangers troubled the timid. At one time the 
Delaware delegates threatened to leave the convention. 
A majority of the New York delegates did leave in disgust 
at the decisions which the convention made. 

A New Constitution. — The frame of government which 
the delegates completed, after working from May until well 
into September, differed 
widely from that which the 
states had accepted in the 
Articles of Confederation. 
In the first place, an official 
called a President was 
placed at the head of the 
administration of affairs. 
Secondly, the legislature, 
or Congress, was divided 
into a Senate and a House 
of Representatives. In the 
third place, a Supreme 
Court was provided. The 
powers granted to each of 
these branches of the gov- 
ernment showed that the leaders of the convention wanted 
to guard against hasty decisions. For this reason they 
made the assent of two bodies necessary in drawing up 
laws. They also gave the President the right to veto acts 
of Congress, which could not then become laws unless both 
Houses passed them again by a majority of two-thirds. 
Furthermore, they wished to protect the people against the 
possibility that in times of excitement both President and 
Congress might adopt measures which would deprive a part 
of the people of their rights, especially of their rights of 
property. They had in mind such laws as had been passed 
in Rhode Island about paper money. This fear led the con- 
vention to give to a Supreme Court the power to guard these 




James Madison 

After the Gilbert Stuart portrait, 

Bowdoin College 



206 STARTING THE NEW GOVERNMENT 

rights by declaring unconstitutional acts of Congress which 
violated them. 

An equally great change was made in the powers of the cen- 
tral government. To it were granted not only the right to 
levy taxes enough to pay its expenses, but to regulate, with- 
out interference from the state legislatures, such matters as 
trade. Moreover, the states were forbidden to issue paper 
money. 

The delegates thought it better to give the choice of a Pres- 
ident to a selected body of men, called an Electoral College, 
rather than provide that the President should be chosen 
directly by the people. They also decided that senators 
should be chosen by the legislatures of the states. Members 
of the House of Representatives were the only officers to be 
chosen directly by the people. 

The Compromises of the Constitution. — It was very diffi- 
cult to come to an agreement about the manner of making 
up the two Houses of Congress. Men from the larger states 
like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, thought that 
their states should have more representatives than small 
states. But the small states did not wish to be ruled by their 
larger neighbors. A New Jersey delegate said that he would 
not submit the welfare of his state with five votes to a Con- 
gress in which Virgina had sixteen. Wilson of Pennsylvania 
just as emphatically called it absurd to give New Jersey with 
a population of 175,000 as many votes as Pennsylvania, which 
had more than twice as many people, or Delaware with less 
than 60,000 as many as Virginia, which had a population 
ten times as great. Nearly five weeks passed before they 
settled the question. 

Franklin showed them a way out. " When," he said, " a 
broad table is to be made, and the edges of the planks do not 
fit, the artist takes a little from both, and makes a good joint. 
In like manner here both sides must part with some of their 
demands." According to the plan finally adopted each state, 
large or small, should have two senators, while its number 
of representatives depended upon the size of its population. 



ADOPTING THE CONSTITUTION 



207 



Massachusetts, for example, was granted eight members in 
the House of Representatives, Virginia ten, Delaware one, and 
Maryland six. 

Many similar bargains were made in the course of the de- 
bates. There was, as one writer says, a " whole bundle " 
of compromises agreed to while making the Constitution. 
Franklin wanted to have a Congress of one House and 
to fix the term 
of President at 
seven years, de- 
nying him a sec- 
ond term. These 
proposals and 
many others were 
voted down. 

The People ac- 
cept the Work of 
the Convention. 
— The people of 
the states ac- 
cepted the work 
of the conven- 
tion, though not 
without weeks 
of discussion 
and opposition. 
Most of the small states thought the Constitution favorable 
to their interests. Delaware, New Jersey, and Georgia rati- 
fied it with enthusiasm. Ratification came only after a long, 
hard fight in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. 
Rhode Island and North Carolina at first refused to join the 
other states. Eleven states accepted the new Constitution, 
and went to work " to form a more perfect union." 1 




Congress Hall, Philadelphia 

National Capitol in 17Q0-1800 



1 The provision in the Constitution that it should go into effect 
as soon as nine states agreed to it was revolutionary, because according 
to the Articles of Confederation any change in the government required 
the consent of all the states. 



208 STARTING THE NEW GOVERNMENT 

George Washington, First President, 1789-97. — The 
Congress of the Confederation appointed March 4. 1789, for 
beginning the new government, and New York as the tem- 
porary capital. Electors, chosen in five ' of the states by the 
legislatures, and in the others by the people, voted unani- 
mously for Washington as the first President. They chose 
John Adams as Vice President. It was long after March 4 
before Congress was organized and Washington was officially 
notified of his election. On April 30 he took the oath of 
office and read his inaugural address to the two Houses of 
Congress assembled in Federal Hall. It was a day of great 
rejoicing. In the morning crowds attended services in the 
churches to pray for the welfare of the new government and 
the safety of the President. Bonfires and illuminations at 
night ended the celebration. 

Washington's Helpers. — Washington's first task was to 
select his advisers. Congress provided for a Secretary of 
State to conduct foreign correspondence, a Secretary of the 
Treasury to manage money matters, and a Secretary of War 
to direct the army of only 600 men. The offices 1 >f Attorney- 
General to advise the President on matters of law and Post- 
master-General to care for the small postal business of the 
country were created. Neither of these was looked upon 
as an important department. Washington appointed Thomas 
Jefferson Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton Secretary of 
the Treasury, and Henry Knox Secretary of War. John Jay 
was made Chief- Justice of the new Supreme Court. 

Formation of the Cabinet. — Each secretary had his own 
work to do. In England such officers together formed a 
" Cabinet " or special body of advisers to the king, recom- 
mending measures of government and conducting discus- 
sions in parliament. The American Constitution said noth- 
ing about a Cabinet. Washington adopted a part of 
the English practice and asked the heads of departments to 
meet together and to advise with him upon important 

1 Rhode Island, \'<>rth Carolina, and Ww York « 1 i » 1 not choose 
electors. 



THE NATIONAL AND STATE DEBTS 



209 



matters. The custom of holding Cabinet meetings with the 
President has been continued by Washington's successors. 
In this way, without a provision in the law or the Constitu- 
tion, the President's Cabinet came into existence. 1 

Providing Money for National Affairs. — The most impor- 
tant matter at the outset was providing money to pay the 
national debt and the ordinary expenses of government. It 
had been necessary to borrow 
money in Holland to pay the inter- 
est on the French loans. Adams 
had also been obliged to borrow 
money there to start the new gov- 
ernment. Congress began raising 
money almost at once by taxing 
articles imported into the United 
States from other countries. Such 
taxes, called tariffs or import du- 
ties, remained the chief source of 
income for the federal govern- 
ment. Duties were raised or 
lowered as more or less money was 
needed. From the first, manufac- 
turers urged Congress to lay import duties on articles which 
were also made in the United States. This would give the 
American makers an advantage or " protection," as it was 
called. The duties in the first tariff act were low, that is, 
only slightly protective. 

The National and State Debts. — Alexander Hamilton, 
as Secretary of the Treasury, was called upon to prepare a 
plan for paying off the great war debt. He proposed that 
Congress should pay not only the money borrowed by the 
government from the French, the Dutch, and from Ameri- 
can citizens, but even that borrowed by the states in their 
own defense. This meant that the United States would pay 
about $75,000,000, a huge sum for those days. 

1 Four men made up Washington's Cabinet — the three secretaries 
— State, Treasury, and War — and the Attorney-General. 




George Washington 

After the portrait by Stuart 



2IO 



STARTING THE NEW I "■' >Yi:R\MENT 



Then' was not much difference of opinion about paying 
hack the money which the L'nitcd States had borrowed, but 
many objected to paying the debts of the states. Some 
states like Virginia had already paid a part of their debt. 
They objected to a plan by which their citizens would have 
to aid other states. Besides, some men preferred that the 

states, rather than the United 
States, should receive the credit 
which would come from hono- 
rable payment of the Revolu- 
tionary debts. 

Another Compromise. — It 
happened that Congress had to 
select a place for a permanent 
capital. The members of Con- 
gress from the southern states 
wanted this to be located on 
the Potomac. The members 
from Pennsylvania wanted it at 
Philadelphia. Other members 
of Congress did not care where 
the capital should be located, 
but were anxious to carry through Hamilton's plan of paying 
the state debts. Hamilton and Jefferson, representing dif- 
ferent sides, struck a bargain. Hamilton agreed to persuade 
several northern Congressmen to vote to .locate the capital 
for ten years at Philadelphia and then permanently on the 
Potomac River ; Jefferson, in turn, promised to find several 
southern members to support Hamilton's plan about state 
debts. The bargain was carried out. 

Internal Revenue Taxes. — Hamilton persuaded Congress 
to tax whisky manufactured in the United States. This 
was called an internal revenue or excise tax. The govern- 
ment needed the money, and Hamilton thought it well to ac- 
custom the people to the idea of taxes collected in different 
parts of the country. He believed that a government, like 
a man, grows strong by exercising every power. 




Alexander Hamilton 

After Trumbull's portrait, Metro- 
politan Museum, New York 



BANK OF THE UXITED STATES 



211 




The levy of this tax soon gave the government an oppor- 
tunity to show whether it was strong. Many persons in 
western Pennsylvania owned small distilleries and made 
whisky out of their surplus rye, corn, and wheat. When the 
Spaniards closed the Mississippi, the western settlers could 
no longer send their grain to market by water. It could 
be sent across the 
mountains only at 
great expense un- 
less distilled into 
whisky. They 
were angry at the 
tax on their chief 
product and drove 
away the collec- 
tors. When the 
governor of Penn- 
sylvania would 
not put down the 
disorder, Wash- 
ington sent to the 
seat of trouble an army made up of militia from the neighbor- 
ing states. The "Whisky Rebellion " ended without actual 
fighting, and resistance to the collectors ceased. 

A Mint and a National Bank. — By Hamilton's advice a 
mint was established, and the coinage of silver and gold 
begun. His plan to create a Bank of the United States met 
with more opposition. England had had such a bank for a 
century. It had been of great use in several ways, but 
chiefly in helping the government when it needed to borrow 
large amounts of money. In Holland the Bank of Amster- 
dam had been equally useful. When Hamilton proposed 
a similar bank for the United States, many opposed the 
scheme for fear that it would be so powerful that it would 
control all business. Congress, however, finally authorized 
the Bank, to do business for twenty years, and subscribed 
one-fifth of the money that was required for its organization. 



The Bank of the United States, 
Philadelphia 



STARTINC THE NEW GOVERNMENT 




Rival Leaders in Washington's Cabinet. — In carrying out 
Hamilton's plans Congress made use of powers not given 
to it expressly in the Constitution. Hamilton argued that 
Congress should provide tor the general welfare of the 

country. Jefferson opposed Ham- 
ilton's plans in the Cabinet meet- 
ings and outside. Washington 
sympathized rather more with 
Hamilton, hut preferred not to 
take sides with either. The fact 
was that the two great leaders 
held very different views of g< >v- 
ernment. Hamilton was bent on 
securing a strong government 
which could maintain order at all 
times. He distrusted the ability 
of the masses of the people to take 
an intelligent part in government, 
and accordingly believed that the 
government should be carried on 
by men of property and education. Jefferson, on the other 
hand, sincerely believing that all men are equal, was deter- 
mined that the few should not ride the many. He thought 
that all the people would in the end prove wiser than any part 
of them, however well-meaning and intelligent. Under the 
influence of Jefferson and Hamilton the citizens of the new 
republic were soon grouped in two political parties. Hamil- 
ton's followers were commonly called Federalists, because of 
their belief in a strong federal or national government. The 
JelTersonians were called Democrats or Republicans because 
of their faith in the people. The Democrats naturally 
looked to the states rather than the United States as the 
governments which must be relied upon. They were sure 
that Hamilton aimed at changing the government into a 
monarchy, and even went so far as to attack Washington 
bitterly for leaning toward Hamilton's ideas on govern- 
ment. 



Anthony Wayne 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 



213 



The New Government and the Ohio Country. — The 

advantages of a strong government,* such as Washington 
and his advisers were [organizing, soon became apparent in 
another way. Hardly had Marietta been founded before a 
new Indian war broke out, in which the governor of the 
Northwest Terri- 
tory was badly 
defeated. The 
new government 
raised another 
and better army 
and supplied it 
with necessary 
war supplies. 
Washington gave 
the command to 
General Anthony 
Wayne, whom his 
soldiers liked to 
call "Mad An- 
thony " for his 
bravery, but 
whom the In- 
dians called the 

" chief that never sleeps " for his ceaseless energy. Wayne 
defeated the Indians decisively and compelled them to give 
up nearly all of what is now the state of Ohio. After this 
it was not so dangerous to emigrate to the West, and the 
number of settlers increased rapidly. 

By 1800 four hundred thousand people lived west of the 
mountains. So many lived in Kentucky that in 1792 it 
was admitted to the union of states on the same terms as the 
original thirteen. Four years later, in 1796, Tennessee was 
made the sixteenth state. 1 Ohio was added in 1803, and the 
remainder of the Northwest Territory was soon divided into 
Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois Territories. 

1 Vermont, the fourteenth state, had been admitted in 1791. 




The Northwest Territory after Wayne's 
Victory 

The part given by the Indians is shaded ; that kept by 
the Indians is white 



214 STARTING THE NEW GOVERNMENT 

Questions 

1 . What disputes finally convinced men that a stronger government 
was needed? Who were the leaders in calling the convention at 
Philadelphia ? 

2. What great obstacle was there to the success of the convention ? 
How long did the delegates work in framing the new government ? 

3. What three branches of government did the new Constitution 
provide? What new powers, not possessed by Congress under the 
Articles of Confederation, were now given to the central government? 

4. Why did the delegates not give the choice of President and 
senators to the people directly ? What compromise was made in order 
to adjust the chief difference between the large and small states ? 

5. How many states accepted the work of the convention? 

6. When was the new government organized ? Who became the 
President and Vice-President? Whom did Washington choose as his 
advisers ? Where did Washington get the idea of a Cabinet ? 

7. How did Congress, under the advice of Hamilton, Secretary of 
the Treasury, provide for the expenses of government? Why did 
Hamilton wish the United States to pay the state debts as well as the 
general debts? Why did many citizens oppose this part of his plan? 
What compromise was adopted in Congress to settle the difference of 
opinion over state debts and the capital ? 

8. Why did Hamilton want Congress to create a Bank of tin- 
United States? Where had the plan worked well ? What objections 
were made ? 

9. What views did Hamilton and Jefferson hold regarding govern- 
ment? What party names did their followers take? 

10. In what way was the new and stronger government beneficial 
to the western settlers ? What new states were added to the Union ? 

Exercises 

1. Review in Chapter XVIII the reasons for abandoning the Articles 
of Confederation for an entirely new frame of government. 

2. Make a table showing the area and population of the thirteen 
states and group them as large and small states with regard to popu- 
lation. (See Appendix, page x.) 

3. Are senators and the President still elected in the manner originally 
provided in the Constitution ? 

4. What heads of departments now form the President's Cabinet ? 

Important Dates: 

1787. The Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia. 

17K9. The new Constitution goes into effect, and Washington 
becomes President. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 

Two New Revolutions. — While the people of the United 
States were busy completing the new framework of govern- 
ment, two revolutions on the other side of the Atlantic began 
to influence them deeply. The first, in England, called the 
Industrial Revolution, introduced new and quicker ways of 
making cloth, iron, steel, and many other things. The 
Americans naturally were eager to learn the new methods in 
order to succeed in manufacturing. The second revolution 
was in France, and seemed to be a struggle for the kind of 
liberty and equality which the Americans already enjoyed. 

It therefore appealed strongly to their sympathies. But 
when it led to a terrible war, in which France was arrayed 
against England and Europe, American sympathies were 
divided. This was especially true after the French as well 
as the English began to interfere with American trade. 

Spinning and Weaving. — The first change made in Eng- 
land was in the method of preparing cotton or woolen yarn 
and of weaving it into cloth. The story is told that James 
Hargreaves, an English weaver, entered his house one day 
so suddenly that his wife, startled, upset her spinning-wheel. 
Hargreaves noticed that the wheel kept on turning as it lay 
on the floor, and he wondered why he could not construct a 
wheel in such a manner that it would turn several spindles 
and spin several threads at once. He succeeded in making 
a machine which could spin eight threads, and named it a 
" spinning jenny " in honor of his wife. This was in 1764. 

Hargreaves did not keep his secret long, and soon other 
machines were made, spinning 20 and 30 threads. The most 
successful maker of spinning machines was Richard Ark- 
wright, who after 1769 made and sold great numbers of them. 

215 



2l6 



THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 




Hakgreaves's Spinning Jenny 

After an old print 



The good points of both kinds of machines were soon com- 
bined in a "mule spinner," which was in common use by 
the close of the Revolutionary War. 

Before these spinning machines were invented, weavers 
often were unable to obtain yarn enough to supply their 
looms. Now yarn was spun much faster than it was needed. 
The balance was restored by the power-loom, another great 

invention. A clergyman, 
Edmund Cartwright, in- 
vented a machine, which 
was run by power, for 
weaving the yarn into 
cloth. This soon began 
to displace the hand-, 
looms. The power was 
furnished at first by 
horses or water-wheels. 

The Steam-Engine. — 
About the same time 
James Watt invented the steam-engine. Men had dreamed 
for ages of using the steam which escaped from a boiling 
kettle for driving machinery. Hero, a Greek inventor of 
Alexandria in Egypt, more than one hundred years before 
Christ, attached bent pipes to a boiler so that escaping steam 
caused the pipes to revolve in the same way as lawn sprink- 
lers turn by the flow of water. Watt showed how to intro- 
duce the steam first at one end of a cylinder and then at 
the other, so as to drive a piston back and forth. His engine 
was able to furnish more power than a very large number of 
horses, and could be used where water-wheels could not be 
set up, and could take the place of the water-wheels when the 
rivers were low. Watt began to manufacture his engines in 
1 78 1. Eight years later Cartwright, who had been using an <>x 
to drive his power-loom, adopted one of Watt's engines. The 
introduction of the steam-engine made it necessary for 
spinning and weaving to be carried on in places where coal 
for fuel was easily obtained. 



COAL, IRON, AND STEEL 



217 




Watt's Steam-Engine 



Factories. — These inventions led to the building of mills 
or factories. Hitherto spinning and weaving had been 
household industries. Women had often done the spinning 
in their leisure time. In some country districts whole fami- 
lies had spent the long winter evenings spinning yarn to sell 
to some weaver or to use in the family loom. The ordinary 
family or skilled weaver did not have money enough to buy 
the new machines, nor a house 
large enough to hold them. 
Therefore, men with money 
built the factories, bought 
the machines, and paid spin- 
ners and weavers to run them. 
Many weavers still lived at 
home and tried to make cloth 
in the old way. But the cost 
of making cloth with the new 
machinery was so small that 
weavers with hand looms 
found it hard to earn a living. Angry at the loss of their 
business, they sometimes rushed into the factories and broke 
the new machines. The change in the place of making cloth 
from the household to the factory is usually described as a 
change from the " domestic " to the " factory " system. 

Coal, Iron, and Steel. — Two changes in the manner of 
making iron and steel were equally important. The older 
furnaces had used charcoal, and as the supply of charcoal 
began to give out, the English makers of iron and steel imple- 
ments imported pig iron from the American colonies or from 
northern Europe. In 1760 an Englishman made a blast- 
furnace in which coal could be used, and thirty years later 
manufacturers began to use steam-engines to cause the blast. 
The result was a growth in the production of iron and steel 
as rapid as the growth in the production of cloth had been. 
This drew many workmen from the villages to the towns, 
especially in the coal regions where the new furnaces were 
constructed. 



2x8 THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 

The Americans and the New Inventions. Americans did 
not wait for the new machine methods of making cloth to be 
fully improved before they began to use them. The English 
government realized the advantage that the inventions gave 
to English manufacturers and merchants, and forbade either 
the machines or plans of them to be sent out of the country. 
Parliament even tried to prevent the emigration of those 
who knew how to work witli the new inventions. The 
Americans, however, found ways of obtaining the needed 
information and constructed the machines themselves. 

A spinning jenny was at work in Philadelphia in the year 
the Revolutionary War broke out, eleven years after Har- 
greaves had invented it. Three years after the close of the 
war a mill for spinning cotton yarn was built at Beverly, Mas- 
sachusetts. Bounties or rewards were offered for the intro- 
duction of English machinery. Samuel Slater, a workman in 
one of Arkwright's mills, heard of the bounty and emigrated 
to America. In order to avoid the heavy penalties for carry- 
ing away models or plans of such machinery, he was obliged 
to store his memory with a knowledge of every part of the 
machine. At Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1789, he suc- 
ceeded in furnishing a mill with the new spinning machinery. 
A French traveler was surprised to find that Arkwright's 
spinning machines were not only well known, but made in 
the United States. 

At Slater's mill, as in England, women and evemboys and 
girls were employed. In a short time the machinery was 
so improved that one worker could tend 300 spindles and 
do as much as 300 girls with the old spinning wheels. Others 
were slow to imitate Slater, for in the next fifteen years only 
four mills were built. Most of the spinning and all of the 
weaving in the United States was still done at home on the 
spinning-wheels and hand-looms. 

Whitney's Cotton-Gin. — The new way of making cotton 
yarn greatly increased the demand for raw cotton. People 
in Georgia began to raise more. In 1786 the Georgians intro- 
duced " sea-island " or long-fiber cotton, which hitherto had 



COTTON AND SLAVERY 



219 



been brought from South America or the West Indies. 
Short-fiber cotton was raised on the uplands in the interior. 
From 1789 to 1791 the production doubled. The great 
obstacle to success in the cotton trade was the difficulty 
with which the seed was separated from the fiber. A slave 
could clean only five or six pounds a day. Eli Whitney, a 
graduate of Yale College, who became a teacher in Georgia, 
resolved to construct a machine which could do this work 
faster. He succeeded in inventing a cotton-gin, which drew 




Improved model 



COTTON-GlNS 



Whitney's model 



the fibers through wires by means of cylinders covered with 
teeth. The new machine run by horse-power could clean 300 
pounds of cotton a day. The production of cotton which 
amounted to 2,000,000 pounds in 1791, was 48,000,000 
pounds ten years later. 

Cotton and Slavery. — Another consequence of the grow- 
ing importance of cotton raising was a change of feeling in 
regard to slavery. Soon after the Revolution, Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey, as well as the states farther north, began to 
free their slaves and to forbid slavery within their borders. 
They found such a system of labor unprofitable where farm- 
ing could not be carried on by the methods of the plantation. 
Several of the southern states were already planning similar 
action. But the invention of the cotton-gin and the demand 
of the factories for cotton stopped all talk of this in the 
cotton-growing states. 



220 THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 

The French Revolution. All these changes were impor- 
tant, but they went on so quietly that few men understood 
how great the industrial revolution was. Most men's atten- 
tion was attracted by another kind of revolution going on in 
France. Ever since the American Revolution Frenchmen 
had eagerly asked one another how they too might have more 
liberty. One of their great writers declared, " Man is born 
free, and is everywhere in chains." Those who believed 
this were eager to break the chains and make men free again. 
Louis XVI, the French king, was well-meaning, but he did not 
have energy enough to make the laws fair and just to all. 

The great trouble in France was that the rich and the 
nobles had managed to lay the heaviest burdens upon the 
shoulders of the farmers. Three-quarters of the people were 
peasant fanners, but that was no reason why they should pay 
nine-tenths of the taxes. The poorer townspeople were not 
much better off. The refusal of I he upper classes to bear 
their share of the burdens left the government without income 
enough to pay its expenses and it's debts. The aid given to 
the United States had added about 8300,000,000 to the 
French national debt. When the government could do 
nothing to prevent bankruptcy a States-General or Na- 
tional Assembly was called together to prepare ways of 
avoiding such a calamity. This body met in May, 1 789, 
five days after Washington was inaugurated. Lafayette 
was one of the members. He and other leaders of the 
assembly resolved that France also should have a consti- 
tution which would protect the rights of the people and 
which would distribute the burdens of the country more 
equally. 

Civil War in France. — Many of the nobles, especially the 
courtiers, were angry to see their privileges destroyed. Other 
men thought that the National Assembly made many changes 
which were wrong. Within two years France was divided 
into two parties, one for and the other against the Revolution. 
Its supporters called themselves patriots, like the leaders of 

the Revolution in America in 1775. Theyhated their oppo 



THE UNITED STATES AND FRANCE 221 

nents just as the American patriots hated the Tories or 
Loyalists. 

In 1792 civil war broke out in France, and soon afterward 
Louis XVI was dethroned and executed as an enemy of the 
Revolution. By this time the earlier leaders, like Lafayette, 
had lost their influence. Lafayette had even been driven 
into exile. Quarrels with Austria and Prussia had also led 
to war. The execution of the king added England, Holland, 
and Spain to the list of enemies. France seemed arrayed 
against all the governments of Europe. 

The United States and France. — Many Americans, among 
them prominent Federalists, now concluded that France had 
gone too far. Others, especially the followers of Jefferson, 
still believed that the French were fighting in the cause of 
liberty. In consequence the French Revolution increased 
party strife in the United States. 

As soon as war broke out between France and England, the 
French expected the Americans to take their side, out of 
gratitude for the help given ten years before. The treaty of 
1778 also pledged the Americans to defend the French West 
Indies. It seemed doubtful to Washington whether the 
Americans should be dragged into* a war which the French 
had brought upon themselves. He decided to hold aloof 
and to act in a manner friendly toward all. 

In April, 1793, Genet, a new French minister, landed in the 
United States and tried to induce American privateersmen 
to help France destroy English merchant vessels on the coast. 
Many Americans were glad to see blows struck at England, 
and criticized Washington severely when he put a stop to 
Genet's attempts to draw the country into the war with 
England. Fortunately the French government soon sent 
over another minister. 

Disputes about Trade. — The war raised other more serious 
difficulties. The ships of England and France were obliged 
to charge higher prices for carrying freight, because they were 
in constant danger of loss by capture. This gave a great 
advantage to the ship-owners of a neutral nation, like the 



222 THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 

United States, who could still charge the ordinary rates. 
Neither England nor France was willing to see American 
merchants take away a large part of their trade on the sea. 
"If our trade is lost," they argued, " where shall we get 
money to pay taxes, and without taxes we cannot support 
armies and navies, and may as well confess ourselves beaten." 

Of course neutrals were not allowed to carry either to Eng- 
land or France things like powder which could be used in war- 
fare. Why should not the trade in wheat also be stopped, 
for soldiers must have bread as well as powder? So the 
English thought, and they seized American ships loaded 
with wheat bound for France, ordering the cargoes sold in 
English ports. England also objected when the American 
shipmasters attempted to carry sugar and coffee from the 
French West Indies to Europe. 1 

The people of the United States were almost ready for war 
with Great Britain on account of such quarrels over trade. 
Their anger was increased when British naval officers seized 
Englishmen on board American vessels and compelled them 
to serve in the navy. By Englishmen these officers meant 
any one born in England, whether he had been naturalized 
in the United States or not. They held the notion that, 
" Once an Englishman always an Englishman." 

The Jay Treaty. — To save the country from war Washing- 
ton sent Chief- Justice Jay to England to settle all disputes 
between the two countries, including those which remained 
after the treaty of peace in 1783. Jay was only partly succcss- 

1 The French were giving the American ships unusual privileges of 
trade with the West Indies, because their own ships were liable to 
capture, and the merchants in France desired to obtain the coffee and 
sugar raised in the colonies. The English, however, declared that the 
Americans could not take advantage of the French offers, because they 
were due wholly to the war, and were simply methods by which the 
French sought to save their planters as well as many of their merchants 
from ruin. The Americans had traded with the French West Indies 
before war began and, therefore, the English had no right to stop all 
such trade. England later paid damages for seizing during the quarrel 
several hundred American shine trading in the West Indies. 



THE JAY TREATY 



223 



ful. The English agreed to withdraw their garrisons from 
the northern frontier posts. They would make no promises 
about neutral' commerce and impressment. The concession 
they offered concerning the trade with the British West Indies 
was so slight that the Americans "preferred to have none. 
All Washington's influence was required to persuade the 
Senate to ratify the treaty, even with that article left out. 

The Mississippi Question. — In 1795 a satisfactory treaty 
was signed with Spain, making it possible for western settlers 
to float their products down the 
Mississippi and store them in a 
" place of deposit " at New Or- 
leans, so that they might be 
loaded there upon sea-going 
ships. 

The French and Jay's Treaty. 
— When the French heard of 
Jay's treaty they were angry and 
declared the alliance of 1778 at 
an end. They also threatened 
to treat American vessels trad- 
ing with Great Britain and her 
colonies exactly as the United 
States permitted the British to 
treat American vessels trading with France and her colonies. 
The partisans of France were very bitter toward Washing- 
ton. The merchants were relieved when the danger of war 
with England was gone, but the great mass of the people 
outside the coast towns ardently supported the French and 
hated the English. 

Change of Administration in the United States. — By 
1797 Washington had served two terms as President. He 
decided not to permit his name to go before the electors again. 
In his farewell address he urged his fellow countrymen " to 
steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the 
foreign world." He now retired to Mount Vernon, where he 
died two years later. 




John Jay 
After the portrait by Gilbert Stuart 



224 THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 

In the electoral college there was a lively struggle over 
his successor. The quarrel over Jay's treaty still excited 
the Jeflersonians and the Federalists. John Adams, Vice- 
President since 1789, was the Federalist candidate, while the 
Republicans desired Jefferson. Adams won by three votes, 
and Jefferson became Vice-President. 1 

Troubles with France. — Adams had been in office only 
a few months when the country was on the point of declaring 
war against the French because of seizures of American ships 
for violating their war decrees. The government of France 
was now bankrupt. Its ordinary expenses were paid by money 
which victorious generals like Napoleon Bonaparte sent to 
Paris from conquered lands. When Adams sent commis- 
sioners to France to settle these cases, the French officials 
not only demanded a loan of millions for the government, 
but they asked for $250,000 for their own pockets. The 
commissioners replied that they should not have a sixpence. 
The news of this insulting treatment filled most Americans 
with indignation, although some Republicans thought insults 
the proper way of treating the Adams administration. 
Congress met the situation by providing for the construction 
of several war ships and by authorizing them, and merchant 
ships as well, to attack French ships in defense of American 
commerce. 

A Treaty with France. — Fortunately for America, the 
French government was changed in 1799 and Napoleon 
Bonaparte, as First Consul, became its head. He saw no 
object in prolonging the quarrel with the Americans, and 
signed a treaty ending the difficulties. The quarrel had 
interfered little with the trade of American merchants in the 
West Indies. They were busy carrying West India coffee 
and sugar to Europe. To comply with the English rules they 
must first bring the cargoes to the United States, unload 
them, and pay import duties as if they were to be sold in the 

1 The Constitution originally provided that the candidate receiving 
next to the highest number of votes in the electoral college should be 
Vice-President. 



A TREATY WITH FRANCE 225 

United States. The cargoes could then be put on the same 
ships, the duties paid back, and the ships could sail for Euro- 
pean ports without risk of capture. Before the war between 
England and France the United States exported to Europe 
only about one million pounds of sugar and two million 
pounds of coffee each year. Within four years the amount 
of sugar had risen tc 35,000,000 pounds and that of coffee 
to 62, 000,000 pounds. It seemed, therefore, that the misfor- 
tunes of France were as profitable to American merchants as 
English inventions to American manufacturers. 

Questions 

1. What two revolutions in Europe deeply influenced the United 
States? Which impressed the American people the more? Why- 
was the industrial revolution very important ? 

2. What new inventions changed the method of manufacturing in 
England? How did these machines affect the work of the house? 
Why did the hand weavers lose their work ? 

3. What two changes took place in iron and steel manufacture? 
Where were the iron workers obliged to go ? 

4. Which one of the new inventions was quickly introduced into 
the United States ? Who tended the spindles in Slater's mill ? 

5. What invention helped the South to produce enough cotton for 
the new factories in England and the United States ? How did the 
demand for cotton influence the migration westward? What effect 
had it on the talk of freeing the slaves ? 

6. How did the American Revolution affect Frenchmen? What 
were the chief causes of the Revolution in France? Why did some 
oppose the changes in France? What larger war resulted from the 
French Revolution? 

7. What did Americans think of the French war? Why did some 
want to help France? Why did Washington and his advisers decide 
not to help France? 

8. What did Genet attempt to do ? What advantage did American 
shipmasters have in trade over the English and French ? How did the 
English try to deprive them of this advantage ? Under what conditions 
did England allow them to carry French sugar and coffee to Europe ? 

9. What other trouble did the United States have with Great 
Britain ? How much did Jay's treaty obtain in the way of concessions 
from England ? 

10. How was the Mississippi question finally settled? 

11. What did the French do when they heard of Jay's treaty with 



226 THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 

England ? What did France do which brought the United States and 
France to the verge of a great war ? 

12. Why were the wars of France and the inventions of England 
both profitable for many Americans ? 

Exercises 

1. Describe the method of making cloth before the industrial revolu- 
tion. If possible first visit a museum where the hand machines formerly 
used may be seen. 

2. If possible visit a cotton or woolen mill and learn about the 
various stages in making cloth today. 

3. Tell the story of the invention of Hargreaves's spinning jenny. 

4. Tell the story of how Samuel Slater introduced the spinning 
machinery into the United States. 

5. Tell the story of Eli Whitney's cotton-gin. 

6. Review in Chapter XVIII the way in which American merchants 
had secured a profitable trade in the West Indies in 1785 and 1786. 
What trouble had they over this trade during the war between England 
and France? 

7. Review in Chapter XVIII the early history of the Mississippi 
question. Who were naturally greatly pleased by the final settlement ? 

Important Events: 

1789. Samuel Slater sets up a spinning mill at Pawtucket, Rhode 

Island. The French Revolution begins. 
1793. Eli Whitney invents the cotton-gin. 



CHAPTER XXI 
RULE OF JEFFERSON: A NEW WEST 

Jefferson elected President. — In 1800 a new election took 
place. The Federalists had guided the country safely past 
the dangers of war with Great Britain and France, but their 
rule had become unpopular. They stood for strong govern- 
ment and high taxes. Now that Washington was dead, the 
Federalists quarrelled among themselves. Hamilton criti- 
cized Adams publicly, but could not prevent his nomina- 
tion. The Republicans nominated Jefferson, who was very 
popular except in New England and among the merchants 
of the coast towns. Jefferson was victorious, obtaining 73 
electoral votes, while Adams received 65. 1 

The New Capital. — One of the last acts of the Federalists 
was to move the seat of government from Philadelphia to 
Washington, the new capital on the Potomac. The city was 
located in a tract of land ten miles square, called the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, which had been given to the United 
States by Virginia and Maryland. 2 It was laid out on a 
spacious plan, its wide streets, large parks, and gardens 
taking up more than half the ground. Little had been done 
by 1800. A row of dreary boarding-houses, a partly finished 
capitol building for Congress, a President's house — these 
were all. The streets were ungraded, and ran through vast 
patches of scrubby oak, wild ravines, and marshy river flats. 
Many made fun of it as a city of magnificent distances, or 

1 Jefferson and his Republican "running-mate," Aaron Burr, re- 
ceived the same number of votes, and the House of Representatives 
chose Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President. An amendment 
was adopted in 1804 which required the electors to vote separately for 
President and Vice-President. 

2 In 1846 Congress returned Virginia's part, south of the Potomac, 
because it was not needed. 

227 



228 



RULE OF JEFFERSON: A NEW WEST 



the scat of the President's " palace in the woods." It seemed 
a dreary place to the members of Congress accustomed to 
the gay life of Philadelphia. 

The New President. — The new President was more 
interesting than the new capital. In appearance he was tall, 
of a reddish complexion, freckled, awkward, and shy in 
manner. An English traveler said that he looked like 
a " large-boned farmer." Although a great landowner and 
planter in Virginia, he was a man of simple habits. He 
disliked the ceremonial with which Washington had sur- 
rounded the duties of the President. Instead of proceeding 
to the capitol building for his inauguration in a coach drawn 




7 ?W' 
Washington from thf Potomac in 1801 

1 From an engraving by R. Phillips 

by six cream-colored horses, as Adams had done, he walked 
across the square from his boarding-house accompanied by 
a few friends and escorted by the militia. 

When Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence 
" that all men are born equal," he meant every word. Like 
the early leaders of the French Revolution, many of whom 
were his friends, he thought men, especially the "plain 
people," were inclined to do right and could be trusted. 
He believed that the people should be left to govern them- 
selves in their towns, counties, and states with as little inter- 
ference from the central government as possible. He would 
have every man vote who earned a living, instead of limiting 
the privilege to property holders, as in most of the older 
states. 



PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 



229 



Jefferson was already famous. He had been governor of 
Virginia and minister to France after Franklin's return. In 
Virginia he had not only carried through laws dividing a 
father's estate equally among all the children, but he had 
also brought it about that every one should be free to at- 
tend and support the church he preferred or none at all. In -' . 
other words, he established religious freedom in Virginia. It 
was his ambition to organize a complete system of educa- 
tion, beginning with the ele- 
mentary school and ending 
with a university. He also 
wished to free children born 
of negro slaves, and thus grad- 
ually bring slavery in Vir- 
ginia to an end. He said he 
wanted " equal and exact jus- 
tice for all men " and "peace, 
commerce, and honest friend- 
ship with all nations." It is 
no wonder that many thought 
his election a great event, the 
promise of better things for 
all people. 

An Economical Administration. — As soon as Jefferson 
became President, he worked to lessen the expenses of the 
government. The army was reduced from 4,000 to 2,500 
men. This could be done because the danger of war was 
over for the time. The same reason made possible econo- 
mies in the navy, which Jefferson believed " caused more 
dangers than it prevented." In his management of the 
finances he had the assistance of Albert Gallatin, an able 
Secretary of the Treasury, who in his youth had emigrated 
to America from Switzerland. Within eight years a third of 
the public debt was paid. 

Purchase of Louisiana. — Jefferson, however, was ready 
to spend money for a great purpose. In 1803 he had an 
unexpected opportunity to purchase the vast territory of 




Thomas Jefferson 
After a portrait by Gilbert Stuart 



230 



RULE OF JEFFERSON: A NEW WEST 



Louisiana, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico into the far 
northwest to the Rocky Mountains. It came about in this 
way. One of the ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First 
Consul of France, was to reestablish the French colonial em- 
pire destroyed by England in the Seven Years' War. In 
1798, two years before he became First Consul, he had been 
sent to Egypt, which the French thought would be a good 
half-way station to India. Although he conquered Egypt, he 




The Louisiana Purchase 

was obliged to abandon it because his fleet was beaten by an 
English fleet under Lord Nelson, and he could get no further 
help from home. In 1802 France and England made peace, 
and General Bonaparte resolved to recover part of the terri- 
tory that the French had once held in the Mississippi Valley. 
He had already compelled the Spaniards to promise to turn 
over Louisiana to France as soon as he should be ready to 
occupy it. 

Just here trouble came. Bonaparte thought that he should 
first recover Santo Domingo, a rich colony in the West Indies 
in which the slaves had risen in an insurrection and chosen 
a negro general, Toussaint L'Ouverture, as their ruler. 



PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 



231 



Bonaparte's officers seized Toussaint L'Ouverture, but other 
leaders took his place and kept up the struggle. Soon yellow 
fever broke out in the French army and the soldiers died by 
thousands. When Bonaparte heard the news, he realized 
the difficulties of his enterprise. He was also on the verge of 
another war with Great Britain. He was therefore ready to 
get rid of Louisiana. 

Spain's agreement to cede Louisiana to France had been 
kept a secret, but Jefferson suspected it soon after he became 
President. Possession of this colony by Spain, which was 







The Reason for the Purchase of Louisiana 

The flatboats in the foreground have brought the produce of the western 
people to New Orleans. The ships in the background are waiting to take the 
products to foreign markets. The power which held New Orleans had the 
West at its mercy. From Hall's Etchings in America. 



growing weaker year by year, had no terrors for the Ameri- 
cans, but possession by France, under such a leader as Bona- 
parte, was another affair. The western settlers feared for 
their river trade, which already formed more than a fourth of 
the commerce of the United States. Their alarm was 
changed to a certainty of impending ruin when, in 1802, the 
Spanish intendant or governor at New Orleans refused to 
allow Americans to deposit their goods in New Orleans. 
Western farmers had no wish to leave their products to decay 
in their sheds and fields. They talked of war, and the 
militia of frontier towns began to drill so as to be ready in 
case war should come. 

Jefferson, like Washington, had always been greatly inter- 
ested in the prosperity of the West, but he did not wish to go 



232 



RULE OF JEFFERSON: A NEW WEST 



to war with France. He thought that the best way was to 
buy New Orleans outright. When the American minister 

offered to buy 
New Orleans 
he was asked, 
"What will you 
give for the 
whole of Louisi- 
ana? " Napo- 
leon needed 
money for the 
war with Eng- 
land which 
seemed certain. 
Besides, he was 
shrewd enough 
to know that 
England's su- 
perior navy 
would enable 




The Old Cabildo of New Orleans 

In this the official transfer of Louisiana by France to the 
United States took place 



her to take Louisiana anyway and preferred to sell what he 
could not hope to keep. 

A price, $15,000,000, was easily fixed, and the bargain 
completed. It was a strange transaction. Napoleon had 
no right to sell Louisiana without the consent of Spain and 
his own assembly in France. Spain vainly protested that the 
sale of Louisiana to America was illegal. 1 Many Frenchmen 
also were bitterly disappointed. For a second time they were 
obliged to abandon the attempt to create a New France in 
North America. • 

Did the President have Power to purchase Louisiana? — 
In America there were quarrels over the purchase of Louisi- 
ana. Even the President doubted at first whether the Con- 
stitution gave him power to acquire any territory. He had 

1 An agent of France on November 30, 1803, received Louisiana from 
the Spanish governor, and 17 days later turned it over to the United 
States. 



HOW LITTLE WAS KNOWN OF LOUISIANA 233 

in times past denounced Washington and Adams and the 
whole Federalist party for using powers which were not ex- 
pressly given to them in the Constitution. And now he and 
his own party were doing the same thing in annexing Loui- 
siana. But Jefferson concluded that the welfare of the 
country was more important than his earlier notions about 
the powers of the government. 

How little was known of Louisiana. — Many thought that 
the price Jefferson paid for the new territory, which was at 
the rate of three cents an acre, was too high. They believed 




-^•>«[ ;vw^r}' ?-*"?* tfw^J v TVs, 






i: 



St Louis in 1800 
From Stevens' Missouri, the Center State 

much of the land to be worthless. Even the President had 
an idea that the part east of the Mississippi was mostly 
barren sands and sunken marshes. This he wanted only 
because it contained the mouths of rivers like the Mississippi 
and the Mobile. As for the rest of Louisiana, that was 
purchased somewhat as boys trade jack-knives, " sight un- 
seen." The greater part was the hunting ground of scattered, 
roving Indian bands. No white man knew anything defi- 
nite about its size, its boundaries, or its resources. 

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United 
States and extended it into the very heart of the continent. 
This single territory formed an area larger than Great Brit- 
ain, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy taken together. 



^34 



RULE OF JEFFERSON: A NEW WEST 



Thirteen states and parts of states have been formed from 
it and admitted into the Union. 

In 1803 the white settlers were clustered along the river 
near the mouth of the Mississippi. New Orleans was the 
chief town. The rivers were the highways, boats the car- 
riers, and so for convenience the plantations usually fronted 
on the rivers, as in early Virginia and the Carolinas. Most 
of the people were French or the negro slaves of French 
masters. Two or three small French villages, including St. 




Lewis and Clark's R01 ra 

Louis, were located far up the Mississippi River, but the 
settlers were chiefly the trappers and Indian traders who 
always hung on the frontier of French settlements in Amer- 
ica. A few emigrants from the United States had already 
pushed into this foreign colony. Daniel Boone, finding 
neighbors too numerous in Kentucky, was trapping and farm- 
ing on the Missouri River, near its mouth. The upper 
courses of the Arkansas, the Missouri, and the Mississippi 
were wholly unknown. Traders and trappers told strange 
tales of these regions — that Indians of gigantic stature in- 
habited the interior ; that the soil was too rich to grow trees ; 
that a thousand miles up the Missouri existed a vast mountain 
" of solid rock-salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it," 
measuring 180 miles in length and 45 in width. 



LEWIS AND CLARK'S EXPEDITION, 1804-06 235 

Lewis and Clark's Expedition, 1804-06. — In 1804 Jeffer- 
son sent Meriwether Lewis, his private secretary, and William 
Clark, a younger brother of George Rogers Clark, to explore 
the new territory, find a path through the mountains to the 
Pacific, and learn what they could of the country and its 
Indian tribes. Two score and five frontiersmen made up 
the expedition. They rowed, or with favorable winds sailed, 
the boats slowly up the Missouri, camping at night. They 




Gates of the Rocky Mountains 

So called by Lewis and Clark, who passed them July 19, 1805. The Missouri River 
is here confined by a spur of the Big Belt Mountains 

supplied themselves with food from the wild game which 
abounded in the region — geese, antelope, deer, bear, elk, 
and enormous herds of buffalo. 

The party wintered among friendly Indians near where 
Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, now stands, and with 
small canoes pushed on up the shallower waters of the Upper 
Missouri. An Indian squaw, called the Bird Woman, who 
had been kidnapped from a mountain tribe, accompanied 
them from their winter camp and won for them the friendship 
of her kindred in the mountains. The explorers followed 
the course of the Missouri across North Dakota and Montana 
until the river separated into three branches. These were 



236 



RULE OF JEFFERSON: A NEW WEST 



named the Jefferson, the Madison, and the Gallatin. The 
expedition pushed on up the Jefferson branch until this was 
no longer navigable. Then they left their canoes and bought 
horses from the Indians, who showed them a path through 
the mountains. After a time they could not find game and 
had to kill some of their horses for food. When they reached 
a large river that flowed westward, they made canoes and 
floated down to the Columbia. They followed the Columbia 




Pike's Route 

until it broadened into a bay studded with low islands, and 
until the roar of breakers showed them that they had reached 
the Pacific. 

Thev were now 2,100 miles from St. Louis. They built 
log-huts and spent a second winter in the western wilderness 
surrounded by Indians. The return was easier, and they 
reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806. It was an expe- 
dition worthy to rank with that of De Soto and Coronado. 
One man had died and only one Indian had been killed. 

Zebulon Pike. — At the same time Zebulon Pike was sent 
to explore other portions of Louisiana Territory. In 1805, 
with a few companions, he followed the Mississippi River 
nearly to its source. In 1806 he undertook the harder task 
of visiting the Indians and exploring the country along the 
rn border of the Rocky Mountains. He followed the 



ZEBULON PIKE 



23 7 



Missouri and then the Osage River, and zigzagged across 
the plains of Kansas, touching once the boundary of what is 
now Nebraska and at another time that of Oklahoma. Pike 
thought that the Arkansas River valley must be a paradise 
for the wandering savages because of the abundance of game 
— buffalo, elk, and deer. 

Part of the way he was close to the path that Coronado 
had taken from New Mexico into central Kansas 265 years 




Astoria in 18 11 
The fur traders' post of the Oregon country. After an old print 

earlier. He met few Indians. In exploring the mountain 
front, looking for a pass, Pike found and described the Royal 
Gorge of the Arkansas River and the beautiful mountain 
peak which bears his name. The expedition suffered in- 
tensely when winter came on. At one time the members 
were four days without food, tramping knee-deep through 
snow, and loaded down with some seventy pounds of baggage 
apiece. The famished men finally found a herd of buffaloes. 
Pike wandered around in the mountains of southern Colo- 
rado until he crossed the frontier into the territory of Spain. 
The Spanish authorities, taking him to be a spy, seized him 
and carried him to Santa Fe in New Mexico. He was later 
taken to El Paso, but was released and found his way back to 
the United States in 1807. 

Results of Exploration in the Far West. — The descrip- 
tion of Louisiana by these pathfinders prepared the way for 



238 RULE OP JEFFERS<>.\ : A NEW WEST 

its settlement later. At the time the Amencan people had 
enough land east of the Mississippi. Even President Jeffer- 
son thought that the new country would be most useful if 
kept as a reservation for the Indians, who were barring the 
progress of settlement in the older territories. Indian trade 
and trapping for furs were the only chances for immediate 
profit from the vast region. 

Oregon. — Lewis and Clark had pushed far beyond the 
boundaries of Louisiana and laid the basis for a claim upon 
the Oregon country. This meant all that territory included 
in the present states of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. 
Captain Gray, an American commander, had long before, in 
1792, sailed along the Pacific coast. In 181 1 John Jacob 
Astor established a trading post, named Astoria, at the 
mouth of the Columbia River. All these expeditions gave 
the United States a claim on Oregon and thus an opening 
for the United States to the Pacific. Astor's men soon sold 
the post to British fur traders. Fortunately, after the War 
of 1 81 2, the United States obtained possession of Astoria, 
and it became again an American outpost on the Pacific. 

Questions 

1. Why were the Federalists defeated in the election of 1800? 
Who was elected President ? 

2. What change was made in the location of the United States 
capital? How did the national government secure the District of 
Columbia? Describe Washington in 1800. 

3. Why was Jefferson popular with the "plain people"? What 
were his ideas of government ? What had he accomplished in Virginia ? 
What did he do to lessen the expenses of the .government ? 

4. What was Napoleon's New W< »rld project ? How did he attempt 
to carry this out ? Why was he obliged to abandon it? Why was he 
ready in 1803 to get rid of Louisiana ? 

5. Why were Americans alarmed over the cession of Louisiana 
from Spain to France? How did Spain further alarm them in 1802? 

6. Describe the purchase of Louisiana. What did Jefferson try 
to purchase? What did he actually secure? Why was this a strange 
thing for Napoleon and Jefferson to do? 

7. What did Americans think of Louisiana? Describe the settle- 
ments which had been made there. 



OREGON 239 

8. Whom did Jefferson send to explore Louisiana? Describe the 
journeys of these famous explorers. 

9. How did Jefferson think the United States could best use the 
new territory ? Why was he anxious to move the Indians westward ? 

10. What country besides Louisiana did Lewis and Clark explore? 
What claims had the United States on Oregon? What other nation 
now also claimed Oregon? 

Exercises 

1 . Review Chapters XIX and XX for a list of things accomplished 
by the Federalists. 

2. Review the exploration of Coronado in the Southwest. See 
page 10 or Introductory American History, Chapter XVII. 

3. Trace on an outline map the journeys of Lewis and Clark and of 
Pike, making a list of the present states which they touched. 

4. Which country, the United States or Spain, had the greater 
part of the territory west of the Mississippi River after the purchase 
of Louisiana ? (See map, page 230.) What must both do next if they 
were to hold the territories they claimed ? 

Important Dates: 

1 801. Thomas Jefferson becomes President. 

1803. Louisiana purchased from France. 

1 804- 1 806. Lewis and Clark explore Louisiana and Oregon. 




'I 



Scene on the Columbia River 
Showing Mount Hood 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 

Turmoil again in Europe. — A month after the United 
States bought Louisiana from Napoleon, war broke out be- 
tween France and England. This war was in reality a con- 
tinuation of the war which had been waged from 1793 until 
1802. It did not end until 18 14. If the first war had given 
American merchants an opportunity to carry a large part 
of the freight between the West Indies and Europe, the 
new war seemed likely to be still more profitable, because 
all European countries except Turkey were finally drawn 
into it. 

European War and the United States. — Could the Amer- 
icans keep out of a struggle which, like a terrible whirlpool, 
might engulf those who appeared to be at a safe distance? 
Their experience during the war which began in 1793 showed 
the danger. All the influence of Washington had been 
needed to keep them from attacking the English in 1794. In 
the new war their self-restraint was due to the influence of 
President Jefferson and of President Madison, who succeeded 
him in 1809. 1 Nevertheless they were finally drawn into the 
struggle. The War of 18 12 was the consequence. 

The War at first a Duel between France and England. — 
From 1803 to 1805 the contest was between the English and 
the French. It was almost as if an elephant should try to 
attack a whale. The French army was the best in Europe. 
It was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest 
general of modern times, whom the French proclaimed their 

1 In 1804 Jefferson was overwhelmingly reelected. In the election 
four years later Jefferson supported his Secretary of State, James 
Madison, who was chosen President after a contest almost as one- 
sided as that of 1804. 

240 



EXTENSION OF THE WAR 



241 



Emperor in 1804. On land the French army seemed uncon- 
querable so long as he was at its head. But it could not 
attack the English directly, although England is separated 
from the Continent only by the Channel, which is twenty- 
five miles wide. In the " narrow seas," as well as on the 
broad ocean, the English seemed invincible because of their 
powerful navy. The French had many battle-ships, but 
these were blockaded in French 
ports by English fleets. 

Only once during the war did 
the French venture to fight the 
English on the sea. This was 
off Cape Trafalgar in October, 
1805, and their fleet, together 
with the ships of Spain, at that 
time their ally, numbered 33. 
The English had 27 ships, but 
they were commanded by Lord 
Nelson, who was as skillful on 
the sea as Napoleon was on the 
land. What a tremendous con- 
flict, 60 ships-of-the-line, many 
of them carrying a hundred cannon ! The French and the 
Spaniards sailed in a long line, while the English moved 
down upon them in two lines or columns. Nelson's flag-ship, 
the Victory, was at the head of one column. At its mast- 
head flew Nelson's signal, " England expects every man to do 
his duty." Few French or Spanish ships escaped in the 
fierce struggle which followed. Nelson was killed, but his 
last victory gave England command of the seas for a century. 

Extension of the War. — In 1805 the war began to spread. 
Austria and Russia became England's allies and declared 
war on France. . They were defeated, and Austria made 
peace. In 1806 Prussia, aided by Russia, tried to drive 
the terrible French Emperor from Germany, but both were 
beaten and obliged to make peace. Then Sweden, Den- 
mark, and Portugal were forced to take sides. Holland was 




Lord Nelson 



242 UNITE!) STATES AND NAPOLEONIC WARS 

from the beginning managed by the French. By 1807 the 
United States was the only neutral of importance. Could 
the United States trade peacefully in such a warring world ? 

How American Trade was affected. — The answer to the 
question depended upon the English, for the United States 
had only a few frigates, while the English had at least 75 
battleships. At first the English permitted American mer- 
chants to import French, Spanish, and Dutch sugar and 
coffee from the West Indies and export them to Europe. 
But they soon found that the American shippers could 
undersell them in the European market, notwithstanding 
the expense of carrying the sugar first into a port of the 
United States and unloading it. The English merchants and 
planters complained that their business was suffering. The 
English government then began seizing American ships 
engaged in this trade. 

English war ships cruised off the ports of the United States 
and stopped vessels passing in and out, taking possession of 
those which had broken any of the rules that the English gov- 
ernment had made in regard to neutral trade. In stopping 
a vessel near New York several shots were fired, one of which 
killed the steersman. Sometimes when the English vessels 
disappeared French vessels, equally contemptuous of Ameri- 
can rights, would take their places. 

The English Excuse. — The English parliament had to 
listen to the complaints of merchants, shipowners, and plant- 
ers, because it was laying heavy taxes upon them. England 
was obliged to lend vast sums to her allies on the Continent, 
otherwise they could not have kept up the conflict with the 
French for six months. Even before the war began in 1803 
England's debt amounted to five billion dollars, at the pres- 
ent value of money. Every man with more than $2,000 
income was compelled to give a tenth of it in taxes to the 
government. 

Difficulties Increase. — In 1806 and 1807 troubles thick- 
ened for the American merchants. The English declared 
that they would capture any ships which tried to enter ports 



IMPRESSMENT OF SEAMEN 



243 



on the northwestern coast of France. Bonaparte retorted 
by declaring that French ships would seize any vessel which 
traded with Great Britain. England's reply to this chal- 
lenge was that their enemies in Europe should not have any 
coffee, sugar, cotton, or dye stuffs, unless they purchased 
these products from English merchants or from neutral mer- 
chants whose ships stopped at an English port and paid 
taxes on the cargoes.^ In 1807, before these rules went into 
effect, the United States ex- 
ported 64,000,000 pounds of 
cotton alone, worth $5,476,000. 

Impressment of Seamen. — 
The quarrel with the English 
over the impressment of seamen 
was quite as fierce as the quarrel 
about trade. It was customary 
in England, when a crew was 
needed for a war ship, to send 
bodies of marines, called "press- 
gangs," through the sailors' 
haunts in the ports and seize 
enough seamen. If a sailor 
happened to be an American, he 
might be seized with the rest. 
The United States had no agents 
in England who could protect its sailors from such out- 
rages. English war ships also frequently stopped merchant 
vessels on the ocean and took the men they needed. If they 
thought there were Englishmen on board American vessels, 
they stopped them also. The fact that a sailor had been 
naturalized did not save him, for the officers held that he 
had not ceased to be an Englishman. 

The injustice was not all on one side. While American 
merchants were making money as neutral traders, they were 
eager to obtain men. The number of sailors in the United 
States was not sufficient to man all the ships. The mer- 
chants, accordingly, offered higher wages, raising them from 




Napoleon Bonaparte 
After the portrait by Paul Delaroche 



244 UNITED STATES AND NAPOLEONIC WARS 

$8 a month to $24. The bait proved attractive, especially as 
the English sailors were poorly paid and ill-treated. Scores 
began to desert. Some ships had scarcely men enough to 
get out of the American port which they had entered. At 
Norfolk, Virginia, one ship lost every sailor. The sailors 
often changed their names, obtained naturalization papers, 
and pretended that they were American citizens. News of 
such things enraged the British naval officers and they grew 
more insulting in their search of American ships. Moreover 
mistakes were sometimes made and American born citizens 
impressed. Such acts would not have been endured for a 
moment had the United States been strong enough to com- 
pel the British government to change its way of dealing 
with the difficulty. 

The " Chesapeake" and the " Leopard" 1807. — In 1807 
several sailors deserted from British frigates in Chesapeake 
Bay and afterward enlisted on the United States frigate 
Chesapeake, which was then being fitted out for service in the 
Mediterranean. The British officers requested the return of 
the men, but American officials refused. This refusal angered 
the British admiral at Halifax and he ordered that the Chesa- 
peake be searched as soon as it appeared on the ocean. The 
task was assigned to the frigate Leopard. The commander 
of the Chesapeake rightly refused to permit a search, but 
his ship was not ready for a battle. The Leopard fired upon 
him and in a few minutes he was forced to surrender. The 
news of the outrage sent a thrill of anger through the country. 
Jefferson was still anxious to maintain peace. 

The Embargo. — No one would greatly blame Jefferson 
and Congress if they had gone to war at this time, so serious 
were the wrongs under which the United States was suffering. 
They decided instead to attempt to compel the British to 
respect American rights by threatening not to buy English 
goods. This had been a useful weapon in obtaining the repeal 
of the Stamp Act many years before. But the situation in 
December, 1807, looked so serious that Jefferson urged Con- 
gress to pass an Act called an " Embargo," forbidding Amer- 



MADISON'S EFFORTS TO KEEP PEACE 245 

ican vessels to leave port, and forbidding all other vessels to 
carry any cargo which was not on board at the time they 
were notified of the Act. The Embargo enraged the New 
England shipowners, who were making money in spite of 
Bonaparte's declarations and England's orders. They could 
afford to lose a ship or two now and then, taking into account 
the enormous profits obtained when they landed colonial 
products or their own goods in Europe. The size of the 
profits may be guessed when it is remembered that the 1 
price of sugar in Paris rose steadily until in 181 1 it was 80 
cents a pound. 

Although the Embargo, and a Non-Importation Act en- 
forced at the same time, took from the English the American 
market, their shipowners did not suffer. The ocean freight 
business and the colonial trade were now in their hands. 
The New Englanders complained so strongly, even threaten- 
ing to secede from the Republic, that just before Jefferson's 
term of office ended a Non-Intercourse Act was substituted 
for the Embargo. By this Act trade was permitted with all 
countries except England and France, and would be permitted 
with them if they agreed to treat American ships fairly. 

Conduct of Napoleon. — In all these difficulties the Ameri- 
cans had as much reason to complain of Napoleon's conduct 
as of that of the British government. At one time he seized 
American ships worth $10,000,000. French privateers also 
did a good deal of damage to neutral shipping. However, 
the French had far less power for harm than the English. 

Madison's Efforts to keep Peace. — President Madison 
had no better success than Jefferson in persuading the English 
and the French to respect the rights of neutral traders. After 
he had been in office a year the Non- Intercourse Act was 
withdrawn, on the understanding that if either England or 
France promised to deal fairly with American trade, all com- 
merce with the other was to be broken off. Napoleon 
hastened to make such an offer, 1 hoping to bring on a conflict 

1 At this very time Napoleon was threatening Russia with war because 
the Emperor Alexander refused to seize American ships in the Baltic Sea. 



246 UNITED STATES AND NAPOLEONIC WARS 

between the United States and Great Britain. His shiewd 
offer was successful. Congress passed a new Non-Intercourse 
Act directed against the English. 

Tippecanoe. — In 181 1 the people of the West were aroused 
against the English because of a threatened Indian attack 
under the leadership of a chief named Tecumseh. It was said 
that the Indians were furnished with arms by English traders. 
The real cause of Indian hostility was the steady advance of 
the settlers into the Indian hunting grounds. The people of 
Indiana Territory did not wait to be attacked, but, led by 
their governor, General William Henry Harrison, marched 
against the Indians, defeated them at Tippecanoe Creek, and 
burned their villages. 

Henry Clay and Other " War Hawks." — Many had now 
become dissatisfied with the policy of peace which Jefferson 
and Madison held. Foremost among these was Henry Clay 
of Kentucky. He was a young lawyer, gifted with a musi- 
cal voice and a charming manner. He was ably aided by 
others, like himself full of enthusiasm for American rights 
and confident of American success in a war. The most dis- 
tinguished of these was John C. Calhoun, also a young man, 
and like Clay a brilliant debater. These leaders, who had 
just been elected to the House of Representatives, did every- 
thing they could to bring on war with England. John 
Randolph, who hated them both, called them and their fol- 
lowers " War Hawks." 

The War Hawks were mainly from the new West and the 
farther South, which were without great sea-ports or exposed 
shores. Many of the New Englanders thought Napoleon 
a greater enemy than the English. The War Hawks were 
willing to wage war against both England and France, except 
for the cost and risk of defeat. Madison and other states- 
men from the middle states, and especially from Virginia, 
were opposed to war with cither country if it could be 
avoided. Clay argued that the United States could conquer 
Canada, and then England would either have to yield or lose 
its colony. If Canada were conquered there would be no more 



"WAR HAWKS" 



247 



trouble with the Indians. This argument won the majority 
in Congress ; Madison, weary of the conflict, gave way, and 
war was declared. 

Should the War have been avoided? — On June 18, 18 12, 
Congress declared war. Two days before this the English 
government decided to withdraw a part of the regulations 
which had injured. American merchants. The news did not 
reach the United States until long after the war had begun. 
Moreover, the other grievances remained 




Europe at the Height of Napoleon's Power 



In declaring war on Great Britain in 181 2 the United States 
became virtually an ally of Napoleon and helped him in two 
enterprises with which they could have had no sympathy. 
For years he had been trying to place his brother on the 
Spanish throne and the Spaniards were fighting desperately 
to prevent it. The English under Wellington were assisting 
the Spaniards and had defeated several French armies in Por- 
tugal and in Spain. Of course, to attack the English was to 
aid Napoleon's Spanish enterprise, at least indirectly. 



248 UNITED STATES AND NAPOLEONIC WARS 

In 181 2 Napoleon invaded Russia with an immense army 
in order to humble the Emperor, who, for one thing, had 
refused to seize American neutral vessels in the Baltic Sea 
two years before. If the Americans succeeded in keeping 
England, Napoleon's other principal enemy, busy, the Rus- 
sians might conclude that they were badly rewarded for 
their fairness. The War Hawks of 181 2 thought neither of 
the Spanish nor of the Russian campaign, except to argue 
that the English were so deeply involved in their struggle 
against Napoleon that they could not defend Canada. 

Questions 

1. Why was Napoleon Bonaparte so successful? Why was it im- 
possible for him to conquer England ? What happened when the 
French tried to meet the English on the high seas ? 

2. What other countries were drawn into the great European war? 
What countries did Napoleon control from the first ? Which did he 
conquer during the war? 

3. Why did England wish to stop American trade in sugar and 
coffee ? Were the English the only ones who interfered with American 
rights? What excuse had the English for helping their merchants to 
secure a monopoly of trade during the war? 

4. What rules about trade did England and France lay down ? 
How did such rules affect American merchants ? 

5. What methods did Jefferson employ to force England and France 
to respect American rights ? Why did the Embargo make the New 
England ship-owners angry ? Why did it fail to injure English ship- 
owners as much as American? What did Jefferson substitute for the 
Embargo ? 

6. How did Napoleon treat American trade on the seas? Why 
did the United States overlook his acts ? 

7. What other grievances had the United States against the British ? 
What did the Americans do which gave the British some excuse for 
thinking them unfair? Tell the story of the Chesapeake and Leopard. 

8. How did Madison try to bring England and Prance to terms? 
Why did Napoleon promise to deal fairly with American trade? What 
was Congress then obliged to do ? 

9. What special reason had the people of the West for being angry 
with the British ? What was the real cause of the Indian trouble in the 
West? 

10. Who began in 1812 vigorously to oppose Madison's way of 
dealing with England and Prance? What expectation had the "War 
Hawks" from a war with England? 



CHAPTER XXIII 



THE WAR OF 1812 

An Unequal Struggle. — The great war in Europe, although 
it had brought war upon the Americans, saved them from 
some of the perils of an unequal struggle. What could the 
United States with an army of 6,700 men and a fleet of 18 
ships expect to accomplish against England, whose army 
numbered 150,000 men 
and whose fleet consisted 
of 900 ships? England, 
however, was obliged to 
guard many seas, and 
could despatch only a 
small part of her fleet to 
American waters. She 
could send over only a 
few regiments, because 
most of her soldiers were 
needed for the struggle A^can fleet 
which Wellington was 
carrying on with the 
French in Spain. 

Invasion of Canada. — Clay thought that it would be easy 
to take Canada. From the first this was the main object of 
the United States. The leaders forgot that the task was 
far more difficult than it would have been during the Revo- 
lutionary War. At that time the population of Canada was 
chiefly French. Since then Upper Canada had been settled, 
much of it with loyalist refugees from the United States. 
The United Empire Loyalists still remembered their suffer- 
ings at the hands of the patriots thirty years before, and 
could be counted upon to resist stubbornly the attempts of 
the sons of the patriots to seize their new home. 

249 




English fleet 
Relative size of the American 
and English Fleets 



250 THE WAR OF 1812 

Hull's Ill-Fated Attempt. — Three separate invasions of 
Canada were planned : one from Detroit, a second from the 
Niagara frontier, and a third by the Hudson-Champlain 
route. General Hull was despatched through the woods of 
northwestern Ohio and southern Michigan to Detroit. Most 
of the way he was obliged to cut a road for his troops. It 
was difficult to feed his soldiers, for, as yet, few settlers lived 
on the southern and western shores of Lake Erie. The 
single boat which the Americans had on the lake was soon 
captured by the British. Supplies could be forwarded only 
with great difficulty and expense. It cost $60 to carry a 
barrel of flour from New York or Philadelphia to Detroit. 
It cost fifty cents to send a pound of powder or shot. The 
difficulty was increased by the hostility of the Indians, who 
had not been crushed by their defeat at Tippecanoe the year 
before. Indeed, Tecumseh rallied them to the aid of the 
English all through the Northwest. 

Upon his arrival in Detroit, Hull issued a pompous procla- 
mation, declaring that he had come to rescue the Canadians 
from oppression. The legislature of Upper Canada retorted 
by accusing the Americans of being completely under the 
control of Bonaparte. Hull's expedition speedily came to a 
disastrous end. Threatened by an army of British soldiers, 
Canadian militia, and Indians, and cut off from reinforce- 
ments, he surrendered in August, 18 12. A short time before 
the British had captured the little garrison at Mackinac, and 
the very day before an Indian war party had massacred 
most of the garrison at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago imw 
stands. The fall of Fort Dearborn, Mackinac, and Detroit 
gave the British control of Michigan Territory. This was 
a bad beginning. 

Other Invasions. — Every attempt of the American armies 
to invade and conquer Canada, made in 1812, 1813, and 1814, 
failed ingloriously. Only once did the invaders hold their 
own. In 1814, the third year of the war, General Jacob 
Brown and General Winfield Scott met the English and 
Canadians at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, both near Niagara 



PERRY'S VICTORY ON LAKE ERIE 



251 



River, and proved that American soldiers were fully equal to 
the staunchest British regulars. An English officer ex- 
claimed after the battle of Lundy's Lane, " The Americans 
do not know when they are beaten." Even from these engage- 
ments nothing was gained beyond a display of courage, for 
the army was unable to advance farther into Canada. 

Perry's Victory on Lake Erie. — The most important object 
in the war on the Canadian frontier was the control of the 
Lakes — Erie, Ontario, and Champlain. They were the 
highways on which 
armies and supplies 
could be carried to 
the places where 
they were most 
needed. After the 
loss of Detroit the 
United States was 
particularly anxious 
to destroy the Brit- 
ish fleet on Lake 
Erie. Captain Oli- 
ver Hazard Perry was intrusted with the task. It was neces- 
sary to build ships before the struggle could begin. Timber 
was at hand along the shore. Workmen were brought from 
Philadelphia. Iron was gathered from farm buildings and 
shops, and from every available source. Supplies were 
forwarded from neighboring settlements. Sails, ropes, guns, 
and ammunition had to be carried overland from Philadelphia 
and Pittsburgh to Erie, where the little fleet * was being 
built. The ships were finally ready, and on September 10, 
1 8 1 3 , Perry met the British squadron in battle near Put-in-Bay . 
The fighting was stubborn. Perry's flag-ship, the Lawrence, 
was riddled with shot and became unmanageable. Four-fifths 
of her crew were either killed or wounded. Perry, undaunted, 

1 Neither this fleet nor the fleet of Macdonough at Plattsburg would 
have been called ' ' fleets ' ' on the ocean. The largest British or American 
ship on the Lakes was not even so large as the Constitution. 




Lake Erie and the Surrounding Country 



252 THE WAR OF 1812 

entered a boat and was rowed to the Niagara in the midst of 
the battle. Soon the victory was his. He tore off the back 
of an old letter, and with his hat as a table, wrote the news 
to his superior, " We have met the enemy, and they are ours. 
Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop." One 
of the results of the victory was the recovery of Detroit and 
Michigan Territory. 

Raid on Toronto, 18 13. — Some weeks before the battle on 
Lake Erie, an expedition dashed across Lake Ontario and 
took Toronto, or York as it was then named, the small capital 
of Upper Canada. Some naval stores and two small ships 
in the harbor were destroyed or captured. Soldiers acting 
without orders burned the house where the provincial assem- 
bly met. But the explosion of a powder magazine, near the 
American line of march, killed or wounded nearly 300 men 
and made the affair cost more than it was worth. 

Macdonough's Victory on Lake Champlain, 1814. — 
Every effort to conquer Canada had failed. In 1 8 1 4 it looked 
as if the tables would be turned and that the British would 
invade the United States. The war against Napoleon came 
to an end in April, 1814, and 16,000 of Wellington's veterans 
were sent to Canada. With 7,000 of these men Sir George 
Prevost, the Governor General of Canada, attempted an 
invasion by the same route that Burgoyne had taken thirty- 
seven years earlier. His land forces were accompanied by a 
small flotilla on Lake Champlain. An American force occu- 
pied fortified lines at Plattsburg. On the lake a small fleet, 
under Commander Macdonough, was drawn up awaiting the 
British. After a desperate fight the British ships were cap- 
tured or dispersed. Prevost made a half-hearted attack on 
the American lines and then returned to Canada. 

The War on the Sea. — Neither the Americans nor the 
British permanently occupied any territory belonging to the 
other along the border between the United States and 
Canada. The war was not more decisive in other quarters. 
There could be no attempt by the Americans to oppose fleet 
to fleet on the ocean, for they did not possess a single ship- 



THE "CONSTITUTION" AND THE "GUERRIERE" 253 



of-the-line. Their frigates and smaller vessels could be 
used only in attacking English commerce or in fighting sea- 
duels with ships of their own class. 

The English could spare ships enough to establish a strict 
blockade of the American coast. They boasted that they 
could do more. They declared that " not a sail, but by 
permission, spreads." They felt nothing but contempt for 
the little American fleet. All the greater was their chagrin 
when frigates like the Consti- 
tution and the Essex captured 
ship after ship in sea-duels. 

The " Constitution " and 
the " Guerriere." — Captain 
Isaac Hull, commander of the 
Constitution, and a nephew of 
the unfortunate General Hull, 
had scarcely left American 
waters on the coast of New 
Jersey in July, 181 2, when he 
was pursued by five English 
vessels. He put on all sail, 
but as the wind died down 
escape seemed impossible. 
Part of the time he had 
boats out towing his vessel, 
well. Then he kedged his ship, that is, sent a boat a 
half mile ahead with a light anchor and a rope attached. 
The boat dropped the anchor, and the crew on the Constitu- 
tion pulled on the rope until the ship was up with the anchor. 
In the meantime another boat had set another anchor. By 
such seamanship, for two days and three nights, he kept be- 
yond reach of the British guns, until finally a storm arose, 
which enabled the Constitution to escape. 

A few weeks later in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the Constitu- 
tion sighted the British frigate Guerriere, 1 and gave battle. 

1 Guerriere, a ship which the British had captured from the French. 
The name meant "warrior." 




The "Constitution" 



This the enemy could do as 



254 THE WAR OF 1812 

The Constitution was the larger and better ship, but her 
principal advantage was in the skillful marksmanship of her 
gunners. After forty minutes the Guerriere lay a battered 
hulk. The Constitution was almost unharmed. 

The rejoicing in America was unbounded. Its tiny navy 
was proving of some value. And the joy was greater 
because the people hated the Guerriere for its share in search- 
ing American vessels along the coast before the war began. 
Nor was the Constitution, which the people affectionately 
called " Old Ironsides," l the only American ship to win fame. 
Several others fought successfully in one or more sea-duels. 

Exploits of the " Essex." — The Essex, one of the smallest 
frigates of the United States, built and given to the govern- 
ment by the patriotic citizens of Salem, captured ten prizes 
in the Atlantic, and then sailed around Cape Horn into the 
Pacific to prey on British commerce. Captain David Porter 
managed to provide his ship with supplies, war material, pro- 
visions, medicines, and even money to pay his officers and 
men, from the British ships that he captured. Once when his 
prisoners outnumbered his own crew two to one and planned 
to seize the Essex, the timely warning of his young midship- 
man, David Farragut, saved him. 2 In the Pacific Captain 
Porter captured a dozen British whaling ships. Porter was 
finally, after a year and a half of successful fighting, caught on 
the shore of South America by a superior force, and the 
Essex was captured. 

The Blockade of the Atlantic Coast, 1813. — Long before 
Porter's eventful voyage had ended, the American coast was 
completely closed. A British squadron hovered in front of 
each important sea-port. Only a few ships like the Essex, 
and some privateers, were still playing the war game of hide 
and seek on distant seas and preying on England's widespread 

1 Holmes' poem on Old Ironsides was written when the government 
planned to destroy the old worn-out wooden ship. The plan was 
given up. The ship is now preserved in Charlestown Navy Yard. 

1 David Farragut, then only 1 1 years old, later became one of 
America's famous naval officers. 



THE BURNING OF WASHINGTON 



255 



commerce. 1 In America almost all trade by sea had ceased. 
The exports and imports of 1814 were one-seventh of what 
they had been in 18 10. Things like sugar and tea and coffee 
became so costly that only the rich could afford to buy them. 
The goods that the merchants expected to send abroad lay 
in port. The farmers found that part of the market for 
their crops was gone. 

The War Unpopular in New England. — The war had been 
unpopular in New England from the first. Many people 
believed it wrong because of the plan to conquer Canada. 
Others were angry at the loss of their foreign trade. The 
war became doubly unpopular with the rise of prices and the 




The Capitol after the Burning of Washington 

increase of taxes. Some leaders were misguided enough to 
talk of secession from the Union and of a separate peace with 
England. The governors of several states did almost nothing 
to help Madison secure men and money. In 18 14 Massa- 
chusetts withdrew its militia from the service of the United 
States and directed the movements of this force as if it had 
been an independent army in a foreign country. Traders 
even carried provisions to the British army on the Canadian 
frontier and to British vessels on the coast. 

The Burning of Washington, 1814. — The situation of the 
government was rendered still more distressing by a success- 
ful raid on Washington. No preparations had been made 
to defend the capital. Not a fort, or breastwork, or battery 

1 About 1 ,300 English merchant vessels were captured during the 
war. American swift-sailing privateers made captures even along 
the English coast. 



256 THE WAR OF 1812 

had been built. A force of 4,500 veterans, led by General 
Ross, who had served under Wellington in Spain, was sent in 
August to destroy Washington in retaliation for the burning 
of York the year before. He marched unchecked to the city, 
and burned the Capitol, the White House, and other build- 
ings. President Madison and his Cabinet took refuge in 
Virginia. 

Attack on Baltimore. — A few days later General Ross 
attacked Baltimore. 1 But the citizens of Baltimore prepared 
vigorously and thoroughly for their own defense. General 
Ross was killed in the attack of the land forces. All day, 
September 13, the fleet bombarded Fort McHenry at the 
entrance to the harbor, but the spirited resistance on land 
and at the fort discouraged the British. They withdrew, and 
soon left the Chesapeake altogether. 

Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 18 15. — Two of the 
expeditions planned by the English government for 18 14 had 
already failed. The British, like the Americans, had found 
that the invasion of a foreign country is a most difficult 
matter. By the end of 18 14 both nations were weary of the 
costly and fruitless war and ready to make peace. On 
Christmas eve, 18 14, the representatives of England and 
the United States agreed to terms of peace at a meeting at 
Ghent in Belgium. It was February 11, 1815, before the 
good news could be carried across the Atlantic to the United 
States. Just one week before this, on February 4, the 
Americans in Washington learned that a great battle, the 
greatest of the entire war, had been fought at New Orleans. 

General Pakenham, brother-in-law of Wellington, at the 
head of an army of 9,000 veteran soldiers, supported by a 
large fleet, attacked New Orleans. Andrew Jackson com- 
manded the line of defense. Nature aided Jackson's army. 

1 During'the bombardment Francis Scott Key of Baltimore went 
aboard the British fleet on an errand. He was detained throughout 
the battle, and watched anxiously the damage being done. The 
following morning, as he looked out from the British ship and saw the 
Stars and Stripes still waving, he wrote "The Star Spangled Banner." 



RESULTS OF THE WAR OF 1 812 257 

Swamps, canals, and the river divided the army of invasion 
and made it hard for its parts to work together. Besides, 
the British showed the same contempt for American marks- 
manship that their predecessors had at Bunker Hill, and 
charged straight across an open field against Jackson's Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee riflemen shooting from behind high 
breastworks. These frontiersmen, hunters, and Indian 
fighters struck the enemy down, said an eye-witness, " like 
blades of grass beneath the scythe of the mower." An expe- 
rienced British officer described the fire as " the most mur- 
derous and destructive fire of all arms ever poured upon a 
column." The British left 700 dead on the field, among 
them General Pakenham. Their total losses were 2,600. 

Results of the War of 18 12. — The treaty of peace settled 
none of the questions for which the two nations had gone to 
war. These had settled themselves before the war ended. 
When the greater war in Europe was over, England had no 
reason to press American seamen into service, nor had either 
England or France any reason to seize American goods. 
Fortunately the Napoleonic wars were the last great world 
struggle for a century. Peace between the United States and 
Great Britain became more firm as each decade passed. 

Other Questions Settled. — Within a few years after the 
close of the war several important agreements were made by 
the two countries. In 181 7 they agreed to reduce the number 
of government ships on the Great Lakes, keeping only a few 
small vessels to enforce the laws about fishing. It was a 
fortunate arrangement, for it relieved both nations of great 
expense and removed the dangers which come from the 
presence of rival fleets in the same waters. The following 
year, chiefly through the efforts of John Quincy Adams, then 
Secretary of State, England agreed, as she had in 1783, to 
allow American fishermen to fish in the waters on the coast of 
Labrador and Newfoundland, and to dry on shore the fish 
they caught. This was a privilege of great value to New 
England fishermen. At the same time the boundary from 
the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains was fixed at 



258 THE WAR OF 1812 

the forty-ninth parallel. Beyond the Rocky Mountains both 
nations claimed the whole of Oregon and agreed for a while 
to hold it as a common territory. 

The end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the settlement of 
the differences with England, left the American people free 
to turn away from European affairs and to devote themselves 
mainly to the development of new industries and to the 
settlement of their vast interior lands. 

Questions 

1. What advantage had England in the war with the United States ? 
What made her advantage less than it would have been at another 
time? 

2. What was the chief part of the plan of the United States for the 
war? Why were many Canadians opposed to the United States? 

3. What obstacles did Hull's expedition meet? What did the 
British gain in the first year of the war? Were the armies of the 
United States any more successful later in invading Canada? 

4. Describe Perry's victory on Lake Erie. Did the raid on Toronto 
benefit the United States? Why was Macdonough's victory important 
for the United States ? 

5. How did the blockade affect the United States? Why was the 
war unpopular ? 

6. What veterans did England send to the United States ? Describe 
the British expedition against Washington and Baltimore. 

7. What battle took place after the treaty of peace was agreed to? 
Why did Jackson defeat the British? 

8. Why were the causes of the war not settled in the treaty of peace ? 
What important friendly agreements did the United States and Great 
Britain make soon after the War of 1812 ? 

Review Exercises 

1. State the difficulties which the new republic had with other 
nations from 1783 to 18 14. 

2. State what friendly agreements the United States entered into 
with England in 1794, 1817, and 1818. 

3. Did the Revolution have the same effect on American foreign 
trade as did the War of 18 12 ? 

Important Dates: 

1812. The war with England begins, 
j s 14. A tnaty of peace ends the war. 




CHAPTER XXIV 



NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 

One Consequence of War. — The interruption of foreign 
trade by the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts as well as 
by the War of 1812 forced Americans to supply most of their 
own needs. For several years they could not obtain the 




Power-Looms in an English Mill, 1820 

cottons, woolens, articles of iron and steel, and many other 
things which they had been accustomed to buy in England. 
They, therefore, built more iron mills, set up more spinning 
machines, and wove more cloth. They used nine times as 
many bales of cotton in 181 5 as in 18 10. The number of 
spindles increased from 80,000 to 500,000. Merchants and 
shipowners, whose business was ruined by the war, began to 
build factories. In 181 5 there were over 100 cotton mills 
within thirty miles of Providence, Rhode Island. Weaving, 
however, was still done on hand-looms. 

A Complete Mill. — In 18 14 Francis Lowell, who had 
visited England in order to examine the power-looms, re- 

259 



260 NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 

turned to the United States and succeeded in constructing 
similar machinery in a cotton factory in Waltham, Massa- 
chusetts. Lowell's factory differed from the English fac- 
tories by bringing under one roof all the new machines for 
spinning, weaving, and finishing, so that they could be run 
by the same power. Other men built factories like Lowell's. 
The machinery was soon adapted to spinning, weaving, and 
finishing linen and woolen goods. While New England was 
the center of the new industries, many were located in other 
states. These factories, like the English mills, were generally 
run by water-power, but one in New York was run by a 
steam-engine. 

Iron, Steel, and Coal. — The multiplication of iron and 
steel mills increased the need of coal. The mining of bitumi- 
nous or soft coal had been carried on about Pittsburgh for 
nearly twenty years. Already the town was being described 
as a " smoky city." Among the inventions used there was a 
machine which would cut and head nails. The products of 
the mills of western Pennsylvania, including nails, hinges, 
locks, and tools of all kinds, were loaded on barges and floated 
down to New Orleans. Kettles also were sold to the sugar 
planters of Louisiana. 

The steel mills of eastern Pennsylvania and the other states 
on the coast had relied upon England for supplies of soft coal. 
Fortunately, when the war cut off their trade with England, a 
grate was invented which created draft enough to burn an- 
thracite. Up to that time anthracite, called stone coal, had 
been regarded as worthless except as gravel for sidewalks. 
The mill owners now began to use it in melting iron ores. 

What Machines accomplished. — As mills were built and 
improved machines set up, the amount of work accomplished 
was increased enormously. For example, one person running 
a mule spinner which carried 3,000 spindles could spin as 
much thread as 3,000 women 40 or 50 years before. A 
weaver with a power-loom could make 1,600 yards of cotton 
cloth in a week, while he could make only 40 with a hand- 
loom. One consequence of the change was the rapid reduc- 



FROM HOUSEHOLD TO FACTORY 



261 



tion of prices. Cotton sheeting in 181 5 was 40 cents a yard, 
while fourteen years later it was 8^ cents. Similar changes 
were going on in other manufactures where machines and new 
methods were introduced. 

From Household to Factory. — The transfer of industries 
from the household and the little shop, which had begun with 
the building of Slater's first mill and the invention of the 
cotton-gin, still went on slowly, but surely. The spinning- 
wheel, the hand-loom, and the household forge were used less 




Spinning Room in an American Mill, 1830 

From an old print 

and less and were finally abandoned. Within twenty or 
thirty years after the War of 181 2, home-made products gave 
way almost everywhere to articles made in mills and factories. 
If women and girls needed employment outside of the home, 
they must seek it in the mills. Indeed, they were the ones 
who ran the spinning frames and the looms, the men doing 
the heavier work about the mills. Although each machine 
did the work of many hands, no hand need long be without 
employment, because the mills were built so rapidly, increas- 
ing from four in 1805 to 795 in 183 1. What was true of 
the cotton industry was true also of other industries. The 
things which were produced found a ready sale, since the 
prices were lower, and people used larger quantities. More- 



262 NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 

over, the population was growing rapidly, and new markets 
were being opened every day. 

More Workers needed. — The demand for wool, flax, 
cotton, coal, and iron gave chances of work everywhere to 
willing hands. The mills called the young men and women 
to the towns. The farms and fields called other young men 
and women almost as loudly, for the townspeople must be 
fed, the sheep must be cared for, and the cotton and flax 
raised. The new work made many opportunities for immi- 
grants. Their number soon began to increase greatly. 

The need of more workers had one unfortunate conse- 
quence. Cotton growing required a very large number of the 
cheapest or least skilled laborers. The increased demand 
for cotton, therefore, fixed on the southern plantations more 
firmly than ever another 'sort of labor — that of slaves. 1 

English Manufacturers and the American Market. — 
When peace came the English manufacturers tried to regain 
the trade with the United States which the war had cut off. 
They saw that American manufacturers had taken their 
places in making goods for American purchasers, and they 
now resolved to sell their goods at such low prices as to ruin 
the business of the American manufacturers. A prominent 
member of parliament explained that it " was well worth 
while to incur a loss on the first exportation in order to stifle 
in the cradle those rising manufactures in the United States." 
This plan partly accounts for the enormous sales to American 
merchants in 1816. American imports in that year were 
valued at $147,000,000, while during the last year of the war 
they were worth only $13,000,000. 

The new or " infant " industries of the United States were 
threatened with ruin. The eastern iron works were obliged 
to shut down. The Pittsburgh mills could go on, because the 

1 Several states forbade the importation of slaves, and in 1807 Con- 
gress also tried to put a stop to the slave-trade. So great, however, 
was the demand for slaves on the plantations, that the government 
could not always enforce the laws which prohibited the bringing of 
slaves into the United States. 



NEED FOR ROADS AND CANALS 



263 



cost of sending English goods across the mountains raised 
their price. The cotton and woolen factories of the East 
were also in danger. In their distress the mill owners peti- 
tioned Congress for more " protection." Congress accord- 
ingly passed the Tariff of 18 16, which raised the rates pro- 
vided in the earlier tariffs and added duties on goods which 
had not been " protected." 

While the English wished to sell their manufactures to the 
Americans, they did not wish to buy grain of the Americans. 
In 18 1 5 the English parliament passed new " corn " or grain 
laws, preventing the importation of grain until the price of 
English grain was 
$2.50 a bushel. 
Each country ar- 
ranged its tariff 
with the aim of 
selling to its neigh- 
bors without be- 
ing obliged tojbuy 
from them. They 
were all " protec- The Port of Buffalo in 18 15 

tionists." In the From an old print. The harbors are without 

Tariff of 1816, improvements 

therefore, Congress did what the legislatures or royal councils 
of Great Britain and all European countries were doing. 

Need for Roads and Canals. — With the increase of manu- 
factures and trade and the rapid advance of the population 
into the Mississippi Valley, Americans felt the need of more 
roads and bridges and canals, and, in fact, of every possible 
means of communication. The problem was difficult, be- 
cause the new states could not raise great sums of money by 
taxation, and the United States at the time was loaded down 
with war debts. The western farmers were willing to have 
the government protect the manufacturers with the tariff, 
if it would in turn build roads and canals over which they 
could afford to send their products to the coast in exchange 
for the goods that they needed on the frontier. This was 




264 



NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 




the reason why the people demanded that the government 
undertake " internal improvements." 

The Invention of the Steamboat; Robert Fulton. — For 
twenty years men had been trying to plan a boat which 
could use Watt's steam-engine as its motive power. In 1807 
Robert Fulton, the son of an Irish immigrant, built the 
Clermont, on which he fitted up a steam-engine to run a pair 

of side-wheels. 
Isy^, His neighbors 

called it " Ful- 
ton's Folly," but 
to their astonish- 
ment it started 
off and plowed its 
way up the Hud- 
son River. It 
reached Albany, 
150 miles away, 
in 32 hours. The 
next year the Cler- 
mont made the voyage on the Hudson regularly two or 
three times a week. 

Steamboats soon came into general use. In 1 8 1 1 one built 
in Pittsburgh made the long voyage down the Ohio and 
the Mississippi to New Orleans. Four years later, in 18 15, 
another succeeded in making the voyage up-stream against 
the strong current. It then required 25 days to go from 
New Orleans to Louisville. In 18 19 steamboats ascended 
the swifter current of the Missouri River far on the route of 
Lewis and Clark. In 1819, also, the Savannah, using both 
sails and steam-engine, crossed the Atlantic Ocean. 

From this time on steamboats multiplied rapidly, espe- 
cially in the West. Twenty-one were built on the Ohio River 
in 18 1 9. A year later there were 71 on the Ohio, the Mis- 
sissippi, and the other western rivers. As yet only four 
steamboats had been built on the Great Lakes. Travel, 
emigration, and trade had not begun to follow that route. 



The "Clermont" 

After an old print 



ADVANTAGES OP THE RIVER TOWNS 265 

Advantages of the River Towns. — With an ocean port at 
New Orleans the towns on the rivers of the Mississippi Valley- 
had a great advantage over the settlements on the shores 
of the Lakes. These northern settlements were difficult to 
reach, for the St. Lawrence Valley was in the hands of the 
British. Chicago and Milwaukee were still mere stations for 
fur traders. Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo were only 
villages. The region from the Mohawk Valley to the east- 
ern end of Lake Erie was a wilderness. 

The river towns, on the other hand, were on the great high- 
ways from the East to the West and from the northern West 




The "Savannah" 
The first steamship that crossed the Atlantic 

to the Gulf of Mexico. The steamboat shortened the dis- 
tances. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis 
became large and prosperous trading centers. To St. Louis 
were brought the furs of the new Northwest. Louisville was 
the market for Kentucky tobacco and hemp. At Cincinnati 
a flourishing meat-packing business was established. Until 
the War of 181 2, droves of 4,000 or 5,000 hogs had been 
driven across the mountains to Philadelphia and Baltimore, 
feeding on the nuts and acorns of the forests by the way. 
Now cattle and hogs were kept on the feeding-grounds of 
Ohio until they were ready for the packers of Cincinnati. 
New Orleans was the port where most of the products of 
the West were marketed. 



266 



NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 



Turnpikes and Bridges. — In the West, wagon roads were 
almost unknown except in a few older settlements. The old 
Indian trails were used, but few travelers tried to go far from 
the rivers. In the East, the local governments and private 
companies had built many paved roads or turnpikes, stretch- 
ing out from the chief towns like the spokes of a wheel. 
Toll-gates were placed at frequent intervals to take toll from 
the traveler in order to pay the cost of repairs and a profit 
to the builders. The old fords along the way were bridged 
with stone arches and the swamps crossed by logs or planks 
laid side by side. 1 

The National Road, 1818. — Neither local governments 
nor private companies could undertake the costly enterprise 
of a road across the mountains. Eastern merchants were 




Route of the National Road, 1818-1840 

alarmed at the advantage which the steamboat gave to their 
rivals at New Orleans. It cost much more to send goods 
over the mountains than from New Orleans. Besides, states- 
men of the day were afraid that the loose-jointed republic 
would break apart at the mountains. 

George Washington had taken an interest in a great wagon 
road across the Allcghanies and had repeatedly urged that 
one should be built. In 18 18 Congress finally carried out 
Washington's plan, even following the trail that he had blazed 
for a part of the way. In 18 18 the National Road, carefully 
graded and covered with crushed stone, reached from Cum- 
berland on the Potomac to Wheeling on the Ohio, and was 
later extent led westward as far as Vandalia, in Illinois. 

1 A Scotch enginci-r, Macadam, had already shown how to build solid, 
well-drained roads. His plans were followed by American road-builders. 



ERIE CANAL, 1825 



267 



Stage Coaches. — The new roads, and especially the 
National Road, made it easier for emigrants to reach the 
West, and cheaper for merchants to transport their goods. 
Better roads were followed by finer and swifter stage-coaches 
■ for the traveler. Daily stage-coaches set out for the West or 
ran between the main towns. People at that time marveled 
at their swiftness. They now made the journey from Boston 
to New York in two days, and from New York to Philadelphia 
in fifteen hours. The government mail coaches, by running 
day and night on the new National Road, made the journey 
from Cumberland to Wheeling in exactly twenty-four hours. 




Conestoga" Wagon for carrying Freight 



Travelers in the ordinary passenger coaches could not go 
so rapidly. Six days was the usual time from Philadelphia 
to Pittsburgh. Horses were changed every few miles, and 
the drivers boasted that the change was made before the 
coach stopped rocking. Freight was carried between dis- 
tant cities by large Conestoga wagons, each drawn by six 
powerful horses. 1 

Erie Canal, 1825. — The building of the National Road 
helped the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore far more 
than New York. It also increased the advantage which the 

1 The name "Conestoga" was given because they were first used 
by the thrifty farmers in the valley of the Conestoga River, in eastern 
Pennsylvania, for carrying their farm products to market. 



268 



NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 



river towns of the West possessed over the settlements along 
the shores of the Lakes. Dc Witt Clinton and other public- 
spirited men resolved to guard the future of New York City, 
open western New York state, and gain a route to the Lakes, 
and through them to the Northwest. 

With such objects in mind Clinton persuaded the legislature 
of New York to raise the money for a canal from Albany to 
Buffalo. To build a " big ditch," as Clinton's enemies called 




Map ok xhb Erie Canal 

it, 360 miles long, by means of spades and wheel-barrows, 
seemed a wild scheme, but the plan won the support of the 
people and, in 1825, after eight years of work, it was com- 
pleted. 

It was a great event for New York City, and for the people 
along the way, but most of all for the people of the West. 
It had formerly cost them $32 a ton to send their freight 
100 miles by wagon. The canal carried the same load for Si. 
A stream of emigrants began to move by the canal into the 
region on the Lakes. They were as certain to find a good 
market for their products as the farmers on the rivers. 

Other Canals. — Ohio, encouraged by the example of New 
York, built a system of canals connecting the Ohio River and 
Lake Eric. Ports like Cleveland became distributing cen- 



UNION OF EAST AND WEST 



269 



ters for products from the East, brought by the Erie Canal 
and Lake Erie. The farm products of Ohio and northern 
Indiana were forwarded to the East from these ports. 
Steamboats were multiplied on the Lakes as they had been 
multiplied on the western rivers. 

Philadelphia was alarmed by the success of the Erie Canal 
and attempted to rival it by building a canal to Pittsburgh. 
Part of the way the freight was hauled across the mountains, 
being pulled up and let down inclined railways by stationary 
engines placed at the highest point. 




M 
A Canal Passenger Packet 



^^Bsg^^gS^m^- 



Every state now wanted a net-work of canals to reach dis- 
tricts far from rivers and lakes. Congress gave liberally to 
aid some of these projects, offering large sections of the 
public lands, by the sale of which the needed money might 
be furnished. 

Union of East and West. — These new routes of travel and 
trade not only enriched the settlements along the way, the 
merchants on the coast, and the farmers of the Mississippi 
Valley, but they strengthened the bonds of union between 
the West and the East. Washington's hope was finally 
realized. 

Questions 

1. What was the effect of the interruption of foreign trade? 
What invention was introduced into the United States as a consequence ? 
How did the American factories differ from the English ? 

2. What changes took place in the ii-on and steel industry? 



270 NEW WORK AND NEW ROUTES 

3. How did the new machinery affect the amount of work done by 
laborers? The price of goods? The classes of laborers ? The demand 
for slaves ? 

4. How did the English manufacturers try to ruin their American 
rivals? Why were the Pittsburgh mills not injured? How did 
Congress help the manufacturers? What was the aim of the various 
nations in arranging their tariffs? 

5. What gave rise to demands for better means for traveling and 
carrying freight? Why was the problem a difficult one? Why did 
the western farmers expect the United States to build roads and canals ? 

6. Why was Fulton's invention timely? Where did steamboats 
find a great work to do ? 

7. Why did the river towns of the West have an advantage over 
those on the shores of the Great Lakes? How did New Orleans, St. 
Louis, Louisville, and Cincinnati obtain a leadership in trade ? 

8. How did many places secure roads and bridges ? Why were 
the people of the East anxious to have a road across the Alleghany 
Mountains ? How was the National Road built ? What useful pur- 
pose did it serve when completed ? What improvements were made 
in the stage-coach lines ? 

9. What cities did the National Road help the most ? What did 
De Witt Clinton persuade New York to do ? Why was his " big ditch " 
a great undertaking ? 

10. What were some of the results of building the Erie Canal? 
What other canals were soon built ? What effect had these canals ? 

Exercises 

1. Are there any occupations of the home today being crowded 
out by inventions and new business methods ? 

2. Which countries today have a "protective" tariff and which do 
not? 

3. Find out why some cities have grown more prosperous than 
others. 

4. If there is an old canal in the neighborhood, learn about its 
history. 

Important Dates: 

1807. Robert Fulton invents a steamboat. 

1 81 4. Francis Lowell introduces the power-loom and the new 
kind of factories into the United Statis. 

1 81 8. The National Road is complete from Cumberland to Wheel- 
ing. 

1825. The Erie Canal is finished from Albany to Buffalo. 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 

Immigration after the War. — The same years which saw 
the growth of American manufactures and the opening of 
new routes for trade and travel, saw a great tide of immigra- 
tion coming toward the shores of America, and especially 
toward the fertile regions of the Mississippi Valley. They 
saw also an important extension of American territory and 
influence. 

From the close of the Revolution to the end of the War of 
1812, that is from 1783 to 1815, comparatively few came to 
America. The great wars kept men from leaving Europe, 
drawing them into armies or navies or into the employments 
which war creates. With the return of peace in 18 15, the 
tide of immigration set in again. It was small at first, ten or 
twelve thousand a year, but the number steadily increased. 

Not only did the opportunities in America attract immi- 
grants, but poor people found it hard to make a living in 
Europe. The wars left a heavy burden of taxation. Sol- 
diers and sailors, dismissed from the armies and out of work, 
crowded every occupation. Wages were very low. The 
peasant farmers, in Germany especially, found that they 
must still pay dues to the nobles. 

The immigrants of this period were mostly from England 
and Ireland, although a few came from Germany. The Irish 
were chiefly peasants, but in the United States most of them 
worked in factories or did the hard out-door work of the coast 
towns. Englishmen who understood a trade quickly found 
employment in similar trades. Many English and German 
immigrants were farmers and were eager to obtain land in 
the West. 

271 



2T- 



THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 



The Westward Movement after the War of 1812. — 
Besides the new immigrants from Europe who sought lands 
in the West, many people moved from the older settlements. 
A European traveler in 1817 says that on the roads leading 
across the mountains he was seldom out of sight of family 
groups. Each was traveling as its means permitted. Some 
went in stage-coaches or their own covered wagons. Many 
times whole families, because of poverty, set out on foot, 







?«*?' 



Scene on the Ohio River 

The main highway of the early West 




carrying on their backs or on a light wagon, dragged along by 
the father and sons, the few articles which they would need 
on the way. 

The blockade of the Atlantic coast during the last year of 
the War of 181 2 made earning a living so hard that many 
started for the lands which Congress offered for sale in the 
Mississippi Valley. Consequently the movement of people 
toward the frontier had never ceased. After the war closed, 
it became so great that certain eastern towns were alarmed, 
fearing that they would lose their inhabitants. 

New Frontiers. — By this time the frontier had moved 
still farther westward. Indiana and Illinois in the North- 
west, and Alabama and Mississippi in the Southwest, wen- 
most often the goal of the land seekers. The lands on the 
Missouri were occupied by the vanguard of the " army." In 
182 1 Congress reduced the price of the land from $2.00 to 



NEW STATES 



2 73 



$1.25 an acre, so that a thrifty man could soon save enough 
to buy a farm. The majority of the settlers on the new 
frontiers were poor, and some of them did not trouble them- 
selves to obtain a right to the soil. They " squatted " on 
lands far from settlements, hoping to remain undisturbed 
until they earned enough to buy the land. 

New States. — The rivers were the highways to the West 
until the Erie Canal was opened. People who intended to 




Chicago in 1820 
From an old print 

settle in Indiana or Illinois commonly traveled to the Ohio 
River and floated down or took a steamboat to the village 
nearest the lands they expected to purchase. The result was 
that the southern part of these territories was settled first. 
Another reason for this was that many of the settlers came 
from Kentucky and Tennessee. Many Kentuckians and 
Tennesseans also moved south into Mississippi and Alabama. 
These western territories grew so rapidly that four of them 
were soon admitted into the Union ; Indiana in 18 16, Missis- 
sippi in 181 7, Illinois in 18 18, and Alabama in 18 19. Louisi- 
ana had become a state in 1 8 1 2 . 

The Lincolns and Da vises as Pioneers. — The story of 
Abraham Lincoln and of Jefferson Davis tells something of 
the two streams of pioneers. Both were born in Kentucky 
near the center of the state, Lincoln in 1809 and Davis 



274 



THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 




in 1808. Lincoln's father took his family to Indiana, but 
soon moved on into Illinois. The Davises went to Louisiana, 
only to leave almost immediately for the newer settlements 
in Mississippi. 

Life of the Settler. — In the new region young Lincoln 
lived the life of the frontier boy. He watched his father 
build a one-room log-cabin, which was left for a long time 
without a floor or a door, watched him make the rude furni- 
ture from rough slabs of wood, and clear the first patches of 

ground for corn and po- 
tatoes. He learned the 
simple pursuits of the farm 
boy — to drive the team, 
to handle the rude plow, 
to cut wheat with a sickle 
and thresh it with a flail, 
and finally fan and clean 
it in the wind. Most of 
the time the boy spent in 
clearing fields or splitting 
the rails used in making the zigzag or worm fences. When 
there was nothing to be done at home, he worked for a 
neighboring settler, earning his " keep " and 25 cents a day. 
Life in the West in Lincoln's boyhood was almost the same 
as it had been on each new frontier since the founding of 
Jamestown. The opportunity to obtain an education was 
small. If the settlers could afford it, they started a school 
and hired a teacher. Lincoln called such schools, " ABC 
schools." Court-houses and churches were as rare as school 
buildings. Judges and lawyers rode on horseback from 
settlement to settlement, deciding cases sometimes in a log- 
cabin, sometimes in a tavern. The preacher also rode from 
church to church. 

An ambitious boy, like Lincoln, turned from one thing to 
another, each a step higher than the last. Lincoln became a 
storekeeper, post-master, road supervisor, lawyer, and 
finally a law-maker. The great office that he was to hold in 



Log-Cabin in which Abraham 
Lincoln was born 



LIFE OF THE SETTLER 



275 



186 1 was still in the distant future. Not every western boy- 
had the character and abilities of Lincoln, but each had an 
opportunity to show what was in him. 

A Cotton Plantation of Mississippi. — The story of Jeffer- 
son Davis is also interesting. His father was a successful 
frontier cotton planter. Young Davis was sent to eastern 
schools for an education. After a brief career in the army, 
he became a Mississippi cotton planter, and finally, like 
Lincoln, a political leader. 

In one respect the southern frontier differed greatly from 
the northern. The demand for cotton was so great that the 
new lands were 
divided into large 
plantations rather 
than small farms. 
The cotton plant- 
ers who migrated 
from the older 
communities on 
the eastern coast 
or in Tennessee 
and Kentucky, 
brought their 
slave laborers with them. As in the older settlements in 
the Carolinas, some of the slaves became carpenters, brick- 
layers, and blacksmiths, and performed such work on the 
plantations. The more intelligent and trustworthy were 
kept as house-servants and drivers. The others — men, 
women, and older children — were sent to the fields. Clear- 
ing the land, planting, hoeing, picking, ginning, and baling 
cotton, and hauling it to market furnished work for 
many laborers all the year round. There were few days 
in so warm a climate when outdoor work could not be 
done. A bell in the yard summoned the slave gangs to 
work at sunrise, and the day ended at sundown. Food 
was given to them from the common storeroom. White 
overseers and trusty negroes directed the work. 




Grinding Corn on the Frontier 



276 



THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 



Three things made the plantation system successful : (1) 
cheap and fertile land, (2) slave labor at moderate cost, and 
(3) a steady market for cotton in the North and in Europe. 
Farmers who had been accustomed to do their own work were 
able from the great profits of their cotton to buy slaves and 
so become planters. Fabulous stories were told in the East 
of the riches gained from planting cotton in the deep fertile 
soil of the Mississippi Valley. A multitude of emigrants 

from Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and 
Virginia — plant- 
ers and common 
farmers — aban- 
doned worn-out 
or less productive 
lands for the new 
frontier. 

Two Streams 
of Migration 
meet in Mis- 
souri. — The two 
streams of migra- 
tion, the north- 
ern and southern, 
in the ceaseless search for better land, did not stop with the 
Mississippi. Both came together in Missouri, where planter 
and free farmer mingled. By 182 1 a few of the more ad- 
venturous frontiersmen went on, even beyond the boundaries 
of the United States, to the Spanish lands in Texas. 

The Missouri Compromise. — In 1820 Missouri asked to 
be admitted as a state. This raised a new question. Should 
the states formed from the Louisiana Purchase be admitted 
into the Union as states in which slavery should be allowed 
or in which it should be prohibited? It happened that in 
11 of the 22 states, slaves formed the main body of laborers 
and that in the other 1 1 there were either very few slaves, as 
in Pennsylvania, or none at all, as in Massachusetts. 




Southern Planter's Home 

After a sketch 



THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 



277 




278 THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 

Opinion in the Senate was evenly divided, 1 1 states on each 
side, though in the House of Representatives the group 
which wished to stop the spread of slavery had a majority. 
Whichever group should win a new state would of course 
gain two votes in the Senate. The dispute was finally settled 
on this occasion by a famous bargain. 

The Maine settlers, whose territory had long been a part of 
Massachusetts, wished to enter the Union as a separate state, 
and to do so without allowing slavery. The majority of the 
people of Missouri, on the other hand, desired to make slav- 
ery legal within their own boundaries. Henry Clay suggested 
that the whole matter be settled by allowing Maine and Mis- 
souri to have their way. This would keep the two factions 
in the Senate equal, twelve states belonging to each. As 
for the rest of the Louisiana Territory, except Louisiana and 
Missouri, slavery should be forbidden in all that portion 
north of the parallel of 36 30'. Nothing was said about the 
portion south of the line, but it was intended that it should 
be open to settlers with slaves. 

The Missouri Compromise, as the bargain was called, was 
really a victory for those who wished to exclude slavery 
from the territories. Nine-tenths of Louisiana Territory 
lay north of 36 30'. 

The Purchase of Florida, 1819. — In 1819 a large extension 
of territory where slavery was already recognized partly com- 
pensated the South for what it was to lose by the Missouri 
Compromise. Ever since the purchase of Louisiana in 1 803 the 
United States had tried to buy Florida from Spain. Finally, 
in 1819, an agreement was reached, and the United States 
purchased the whole territory of Florida for about $5,000,000. 
The United States agreed at the same time not to claim that 
Texas was a part of the old Louisiana Purchase ; that is, to 
regard the Sabine River as the boundary between its own 
territory and Mexico. The purchase meant that the 
people of the South possessed the river courses over which 
their commerce traveled to the sea. Andrew Jackson 
had a short time before conquered the Creek Indians in 



THE PURCHASE OF FLORIDA 279 

the southwestern part of Georgia and opened the lands to 
settlement. 

Revolution in the Spanish Colonies. — Spain was the more 
ready to give up Florida as she was fighting hard to keep 
control of her colonies in Mexico and South America. Rebel- 
lion had broken out in those colonies when Napoleon de- 
clared his brother king of Spain. After the restoration of 
Ferdinand VII, whom Napoleon had held a prisoner, the 
colonists hoped that they would receive more rights in return 
for their loyalty. The Spanish government, however, was 
unwilling to grant to the colonists the privileges that the Eng- 
lish colonists had enjoyed before the War of Independence. 

The result was new revolutionary outbreaks, especially in 
the region of the La Plata River, now called the Argen- 
tine Republic, and in northern South America, now divided 
between the United States of Columbia, Venezuela, and 
Ecuador. The hero of the south was San Martin, the hero 
of the north Simon Bolivar. The story of San Martin's 
passage of the Andes to free Chili reads like Hannibal's march 
across the Alps two thousand years before. A still finer story 
tells how at the moment of triumph the liberator of the Argen- 
tine, Chili, and Peru laid down his office in order not to offend 
Bolivar, his more ambitious rival, who had just reached Peru. 
The last victory over Spain, making independence certain, 
was won at Ayacucho on December 9, 1824. 

By this time, also, Mexico and the Central American States 
had won their independence. All that were left to Spain of 
her great colonial empire were Cuba, Porto Rico, and the 
Philippine Islands. What a change had taken place within 
50 years! In 1775 North and South America were princi- 
pally made up of English and Spanish colonies. By 1825 
these colonies had been transformed into republics, preserv- 
ing the civilization which their settlers had learned from the 
European world, but free to manage their own affairs and 
guard their own interests. 

The Last Resource of Spain. — In 1823 Ferdinand VII 
of Spain had hoped that the governments of France, Prussia, 



280 THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 

Austria, and Russia would interfere before it was too late, 
and save his colonies in America. The European monarchs 
and their advisers remembered so vividly the French Revo- 
lution, and all that they had suffered from the Revolution- 
ary and Napoleonic armies, that they were anxious to put 
down revolution everywhere. The possibility that European 
governments would send an expedition across the Atlantic 
excited the people of the United States. Fortunately the 
English were also opposed to such an attempt, chiefly because 
they enjoyed a thriving trade with the new republics, which 
they would lose if Ferdinand recovered his authority over 
his rebellious colonies. 

Another danger seemed to threaten the Americans. While 
the English had been occupied in exploring and settling Amer- 
ica, the Russians had advanced across Siberia, making scat- 
tered settlements as they went. They finally reached and 
crossed Bering Strait and moved down the western coast of 
North America, eager to gain the fur trade of the far North- 
west. They claimed a part of the Oregon country and might 
compel Spain to grant them California in return for help in 
reconquering the Spanish colonies. 

Just then, George Canning, one of the chief ministers of 
England, suggested that England and the United States join 
in a declaration " in the face of the world " that they would 
oppose the plans of the European monarchs for the recon- 
quest of Spanish America. James Monroe was President of 
the United States, having been elected, practically without 
opposition, in 1817 and again in 1821. John Quincy Adams, 
his Secretary of State, urged that the United States make 
its declaration separately, " rather than come in as a cock- 
boat in the wake of a British man-of-war." His opinion 
was adopted by the President. 

The Monroe Doctrine, 1823. — Canning sent word to 
France that Great Britain would oppose any plan to subdue 
Spanish America. This made the plan impossible, for Great 
Britain controlled the sea as completely as she had after 
Nelson's great victory in 1805. When Congress met in 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 



281 



December, Monroe made the American declaration, which 
showed the European schemers that they would find diffi- 
culties on the land, even if they succeeded in crossing the sea. 
He said that the United States would resist any attempt to 
oppress or change the government of any free republic in 
America. He also said, with the Russians in mind, that the 
American continents were no 
longer open for colonization by 
any European governments. He 
did not intend, however, to meddle 
with any European colonies which, 
like Canada, were still left on this 
side of the Atlantic. Spain was 
soon obliged to acknowledge the 
independence of the Spanish 
American republics, and Russia 
agreed in 1824 not to extend her 
Alaskan territories south of the 
parallel 54 40'. JamesMonroe 




Questions 

1. Why were there few immigrants to the United States from 1783 
to 181 5 ? Why did more come after 181 5 ? From what part of Europe 
did they come? What did the new-comers find to do in the United 
States ? 

2. What two classes of settlers sought lands in the West ? How did 
travelers reach the West? Where was the frontier at this time? In 
what two ways did settlers obtain lands ? Why did immigrants settle 
the southern part of Indiana and Illinois before the northern? What 
new states were admitted soon after the War of 18 12? 

3. What were the chief occupations of frontiersmen like Abraham 
Lincoln and Jefferson Davis ? How did lawyers, judges, and preachers 
reach their work ? 

4. In what way did the southern frontier differ from the northern? 
What kinds of work did the slaves perform? What things made the 
plantation system successful? Why did many planters of the older 
states go to the new frontier ? Where did the two streams of western 
migration meet? What region beyond the United States were the 
hardiest frontiersmen beginning to enter ? 

5. What new question was raised by the effort of Missouri to be 



282 THE MARCH OF POPULATION WESTWARD 

admitted as a state ? Why were there differences of opinion about this ? 
How was the question finally settled ? Which gained an advantage 
by the Missouri Compromise, the North or the South ? 

6. What new territory partly compensated the South for the dis- 
advantage of the Missouri Compromise ? How was Florida secured ? 
What arrangement was made about the western boundary of Louisiana? 
Why were the Mississippi Valley states very anxious to have Florida 
annexed ? 

7. What conditions in South America made Spain ready to sell 
Florida ? Why did the Spanish colonies revolt ? Who were the leaders 
in their war of independence? Which gained their independence? 
Which did not? 

8. What plan did the king of Spain form for regaining his lost 
colonies ? What was Russia trying to do at the same time ? Why did 
these schemes alarm the United States ? How did George Canning 
propose to prevent the reconquest of the Spanish colonies ? Why did 
Adams dislike Canning's plan ? What steps did Canning take for 
England and Monroe for the United States ? Why would it have been 
impossible for the European nations to help Spain reconquer its colonies ? 

9. What did Monroe say the United States would resist ? What 
did he declare about colonization of the American continents ? What 
agreement did the United States make with Russia in 1824? 

Exercises 

1. Review the four great movements in American history taking 
place after the War of 1812 which are described in Chapters XXIV and 
XXV. 

2. How does a territory become a state in the United States? 

3. Write about the early life of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis. 

4. If the grandparents or great grandparents of any of the members 
of the class were pioneers at this time, such members should write a 
paper telling the story of their relatives. 

5. Which was of the greater value — the help that France gave the 
United States in the Revolution, <>r the help that England and the 
United States gave the Spanish American Republics in 1823? 

6. Monroe declared in the Monroe Doctrine that the colonization 
of the American continents was at an end. When did the colonization 
of the Americas begin? 

Important Dates: 

1809. February 12, birth of Abraham Lincoln. 

1819. Florida purchased from .Spain. 

1820. The Missouri Compromise adopted by Congress. 

1823. President Monroe announces the so-called Monroe Doctrine. 




TheVUNITED STATES 



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CHAPTER XXVI 
GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 

Changes in Government. — Changes in the method of 
making articles, better ways of carrying them from place to 
place, the growth of cities, and the rapid increase in the popu- 
lation of the Mississippi Valley were not the only events of 
the period. Important changes occurred in the political life 
of the people. The idea that " all men are equal " affected 
more than ever the manner of governing states and nation. 
The older families from which had been drawn the leaders 
in colonial times and in the early days of the Republic were 
no longer preferred in elections and appointments. 

The Right to Vote. — When Washington became President, 
scarcely one-fourth of the men were allowed to vote at elec- 
tions. Voters and office-holders had to be owners of prop- 
erty, usually of land. Even Franklin said that men who had 
no land should not vote. In England the right to vote 
had gone with ownership of land. The colonies had adopted 
the same practice, and the framers of the first state govern- 
ments continued it. But in the new states, whether Ver- 
mont east of the Alleghanies, or Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, 
Indiana, and the others in the Mississippi Valley, the settlers 
were very much alike and were willing to treat one another 
so. They quickly changed the notions that they had held 
in the older communities. The idea of a privileged class of 
persons seemed as foolish as a hereditary nobility or as kings 
by divine right. These states, accordingly, permitted all men 
to vote and hold office. 

The eastern states were obliged to make the same change, 
otherwise the stream of emigration to the West would have 
been even greater. The change was not accomplished with- 
out long debates and many elections, for the older leaders 

383 



284 GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 

prophesied all sorts of terrible consequences. A few states 
clung to some of the established rules, Rhode Island for 
example, insisting that only owners of property should vote. 

Religious Liberty. — Another change, which naturally 
accompanied manhood suffrage, was the grant of complete 
religious liberty. Massachusetts ceased to compel all tax- 
payers to support the Congregational Church. In South 
Carolina, Roman Catholics gained the right to vote. These 
are but two illustrations of a change which was general. 

" Down with King Caucus." — The spirit of equality or 
democracy attacked still other customs. Candidates for the 
Presidency had been nominated by the members of Con- 
gress, those who belonged to each political party meeting in 
what was called a caucus. The custom gave to Congress- 
men an important privilege, and as they often held their 
places for long periods, a few men had a large influence in 
making presidents. A loud outcry was, therefore, raised 
against " King Caucus." 

Many people wished to vote directly for their candidates, 
instead of voting for electors. Thomas H. Benton, a senator 
from Missouri, urged such a change. Several amendments to 
the Constitution were offered, but the plan failed. Two- 
thirds of the members of both houses of Congress and three- 
fourths of the states must consent to an amendment, and 
Benton was not able to secure the approval of so large a 
majority. 

The reformers, however, gradually brought about two 
changes : (1) that the people should vote directly for electors 
instead of leaving their appointment to the legislatures of the 
states, as had usually been the rule ; and (2) that the nomi- 
nation should be made by a convention of delegates from the 
states. It was already understood that the electors must 
vote for the person named by the caucus or convention. 1 In 
1824 one of the candidates for President was selected by a 

1 The framers of the Constitution intended that the electors should 
choose the President, and not merely record the wishes of the voters 
of their states. 



ANDREW JACKSON'S ELECTION 



285 



caucus of members of Congress, but that was the last time. 
For a few years a mixed system went on — sometimes the 
nomination was the work of state legislatures, sometimes a 
convention of delegates within the several states. Finally, 
in 1832, great national conventions met for the purpose of 
putting candidates before the country. 

The people soon discovered that the overthrow of " King 
Caucus " had not gained for them a greater share in the selec- 
tion of presidents. They had merely handed power to a new 
set of masters, the party 
managers or ' ' bosses. ' ' l Cal- 
houn thought that the people 
had lost by the change and 
that the " bosses " were worse 
than the Congressmen. At 
least one good result came 
from the long discussion of 
methods of nominating and 
electing presidents; the people 
began to think the office the 
most important in the Re- 
public. 

Andrew Jackson's Elec- 
tion, 1828. — One reason why 
the common people began 
to feel so high a regard for the office was that Andrew 
Jackson, their idol, was chosen President in 1828. Jack- 
son was born on the frontier in North Carolina. His 
parents were Scotch-Irish. Like all boys on the frontier, 
he received little schooling. Later he studied law and 
crossed the mountains to Nashville, then a small village. 
When Tennessee was admitted to the Union in 1796, Jackson 
was chosen its first representative in Congress. To reach 
Philadelphia he was obliged to ride on horse-back 800 miles, 
most of the way through an unsettled wilderness. His 

1 Sometimes the party managers or "bosses" were private citizens, 
sometimes they were local office-holders or members of Congress. 




Andrew Jackson 

In 1830. Age 63. After the portrait 
by R. W. Earl 



286 



GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 




Birthplace of Andrew Jackson 



life since then had been spent chiefly in the army, where he 
became skillful in frontier fighting. The victory of New 
Orleans had made him a hero. Andrew Jackson was a 
typical westerner, and born leader of the common people. 
In the presidential election of 1824 Jackson received the 
largest vote of any of the four candidates, but not a major- 
ity of all electoral votes. The choice of a President, there- 
fore, belonged to the House of Representatives. Two 

of Jackson's rivals 
were John Quincy 
Adams and Henry 
Clay. Their sup- 
porters in the 
House united and 
c)iose Adams. 
Jackson's friends 
thought that he 
had been cheated, 
because more men 
voted for him than for Adams, and they prepared to 
make his election sure the next time. The southerners, the 
frontiersmen and farmers of the West, the workmen in the 
factory towns — the common people, most of them the new 
voting class — rallied to Jackson's aid. Great was their 
joy when they knew that their chief was victorious. It 
seemed to them to be the beginning of new things, and in 
more ways than one they were right. No election since 
Jefferson's had meant so much. 

So great was the power which Jackson's triumph gave him 
that some timid politicians were afraid that the presidency 
might be changed into a kingship. Those who disliked his 
domineering ways called the period, " The reign of Andrew 
Jackson." For eight years, or two terms, he was President, 
and remained faithful to the cause of the common people. 

Who shall hold the Offices ? — President Jackson and his 
supporters had views about office-holding which now seem 
unwise or even harmful. For example, they believed it dan- 



NEW POLITICAL PARTIES 



287 



BORN TO COMMAND 



gerous to allow men to hold office a long time. They were 
afraid that officials would get the idea that an office was a 
piece of property which they owned and would grow careless 
about its duties. So the Jacksonians attacked long terms of 
office, just as people before them had attacked kingship and 
hereditary nobility. 

Worse than this was the way they used offices to reward 
friends and to punish opponents. Jackson did not introduce 
the custom. It had been going on 
many years in some of the states. 
The men who came into power 
at Jackson's election demanded 
that the offices of the national 
government be distributed more 
freely among the common people. 
Shrewd political managers, with 
nothing else with which to pay 
their party followers, fell in with 
the idea. Jackson did not wish 
to turn honest and competent 
officials out, but he was easily 
persuaded that those who were 
"in " were incompetent rascals. 
To all complaints his friends 
replied, " To the victors belong 
the spoils." 

New Political Parties. — Jacksonian democracy carried 
forward the ideas that Thomas Jefferson had taught, but 
went farther than he dreamed of going. Since his day the 
Republican party had absorbed most of his old opponents, 
the Federalists. Their attitude during the War of 18 12 
made them unpopular, and their party had melted away. 
The period after the war, when there was but one great party, 
has been called an " Era of Good Feeling." It is hard to find 
the good feeling among the leaders of the day, for there were 
really many different factions or groups within the Republi- 
can party. Some were the followers of Adams, some of Clay, 




KING ANDREW the FIRST 



What Jacksons Opponents 
Thought of Him 

From a contemporary cartoon 



288 GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 

some ef Calhoun, and some of Jackson. Upon Jackson's 
election his followers took possession of the old JefTersonian 
Republican party. They kept its name a while, hut were 
more commonly known as *' Jackson men," and soon adopted 
the name of Democrats. The Democratic party of Jack- 
son's day was really a new party — Jacksonian rather than 
JefTersonian. 

The opponents of Jackson claimed to be the true JefTer- 
sonian Republicans— National Republicans they were called. 
These men, the followers of many different leaders, were 
united only in a dislike for Andrew Jackson. They accused 
him of restoring the kind of government against which the 
patriots had fought in the Revolution, because he had made 
the office of President so powerful. For this reason they 
called him " King Andrew," and his followers " Tories." 
They took for themselves the old Revolutionary party name 
of Whigs. The "Whigs were chiefly interested in keeping up 
the tariff, having the national government aid the states in 
building canals and roads, and in opposing Jackson and the 
growth of the powers of his office. Their greatest leaders 
were Henry Clay of Kentucky and Daniel Webster of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Democracy in Europe. — These changes in political life 
were not peculiar to the United States. The common 
people had not forgotten the ideas of equality and brother- 
hood proclaimed by the French Revolution, even if their 
rulers tried to compel them to act as if they had. In 1830 
another revolution took place in France. The King, who 
was the younger brother of the unfortunate Louis XVI, was 
driven from his throne, and a cousin, Louis Philippe, was 
made king. Louis liked to be called the " Citizen King," 
and he went about the streets as an ordinary man. He also 
sent his sons to the public schools. He had once been a 
refugee in the United States, and loved to talk about the 
Americans to returned travelers. 

General Lafayette was one of the leaders in this revolution. 
He would have preferred a republican government, but he 



NEED OF FREEDOM 289 

was more anxious to secure political liberty than any par- 
ticular form of government, and supported the new king. A 
new law in France about doubled the numbers of voters. 

A still more important change occurred in England. By 
the " Great Reform Bill "of 1832 the English parliament 
abandoned its old methods of representation and adopted 
plans more like those long used in America. The right to 
send members to parliament was taken from many communi- 
ties with few inhabitants, which were controlled by the land- 
owners, and it was given to the new factory cities like Bir- 
mingham, Manchester, and Sheffield. The right to vote was 
also extended greatly, though most of the workmen in the 
towns, and laborers everywhere, were still excluded. In 
neither France nor England did they go as far toward a 
more democratic government as in the United States, but 
a long step was taken in that direction. 

Such changes in England meant that leadership was passing 
from the men who had looked upon the Americans as rebels. 
The new leaders were willing to acknowledge that Eng- 
lish colonists in America had fought the battles of colonists 
everywhere. These leaders would soon be ready to give full 
rights of self-government to colonists like the Canadians who 
still remained loyal to the mother country. 

Need of Freedom. — There were countries of Europe in 
which the people needed more than changes in the methods 
of government. They needed to be free from the rule of 
foreigners who years before had conquered them. This was 
especially true in Poland which had been divided between 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria ; in parts of Italy, where the 
Austrians were rulers ; and in Greece, which had long been 
oppressed by the Turks. The Greeks were at this time the 
most successful in freeing themselves. They were aided by 
many Englishmen and Frenchmen, who wanted to show 
their gratitude for all that the great Greek teachers had 
taught the world. Greece became independent in 1829. A 
year later the Poles made a brave attempt to drive out the 
Russians, but were overwhelmed by hosts of Russian sol- 



290 



GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 



dicrs. In Italy years more were to pass before the people 
of all parts of the peninsula were able to unite, and force 
the Austrians to give up Milan and Venice. 




Questions 

1. Name five important changes that were slowly going on in the 
United States. What restrictions had formerly been placed on voting 
and holding office? Why did the new states allow all men to vote and 

hold office? Why did the 
eastern states follow their 
example ? 

2. How had candidates for 
tlie presidency been nomi- 
nated? What changes did 
Senator Benton attempt to 
make ? 

3. Who was chosen Presi- 
dent in 1828? Why was he 
so popular? 

4. What views did Jackson and his supporters have about office 

holding ? 

5. What became of the old Federalist party? What division took 
place in the JefTersonian Republican party ? What name did Jackson's 
followers take? 

Exercises 

1. Learn the qualifications for voters. Have these always been the 
same ? 

2. Find out the number of voters in the precinct, the number who 
can vote, and the number who voted at the last election. Why do many 
fail to vote ? How can an immigrant become a voter ? 



Gold Medal presented by Con- 
gress TO Andrew Jackson 



CHAPTER XXVII 



PROBLEMS OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



Strife over Tariffs. — The growth of the national indus- 
tries and the spread of population gave Andrew Jackson and 
his successor, Martin Van Buren, several difficult problems 
to solve. The first of these was the tariff. When the tariff 
of 1816 was adopted by Congress, leaders of the South, like 
Calhoun, voted for it, 
believing protective 
duties advantageous to 
the southern, as well as 
to the northern, states. 
The South, however, 
soon found that taxes 
on clothing and tools, 
things needed on the 
plantations, were a seri- 
ous burden. Cotton 
did not require protec- 
tion by a tariff, because 
it was not imported, but 
exported. The southern 
leaders concluded that they were taxed for the benefit of the 
North. Matters were made worse when the extension of the 
plantation system, especially in the new Southwest, led to 
over-production of cotton and to low prices. 

The Idea of Nullification. — In the opposition to the tariff 
Calhoun, who was Vice-President, became the spokesman of 
the South. He had come to the conclusion that the new 
political methods, which were introduced mainly by the Jack- 
sonians, strengthened the central government too much, 
destroying the original plan according to which one set of 
powers acted as a check upon another. To him the party 

291 




John C. Calhoun 
After a portrait by De Bloch 



2gi PROBLEMS OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY 

managers seemed t<> In' gaining power in every direction 
through the choice of presidential electors directly by the 
voters, the convention system of nominating the President, 

and the spoils system, which was used to pay faithful party 
followers. Calhoun, therefore, fell hack upon the old idea 
that the states, rather than the Supreme Court, were final 
judges of what the national government had a right to do. 

In 1832 South Carolina, influenced by Calhoun, called a 
state convention which declared the tariff acts null and void. 
This meant that the national officers could not collect duties 
in the ports of South Carolina, and that if the United States 
used force, the state would withdraw from the Union. 

Two years before this a greal debate on the questions of 
states' rights had taken place in the United States Senate. 
Senator Haync of South Carolina defended the ideas of Cal- 
houn, and Senator Webster of Massachusetts argued that the 
I lowers of the national government were supreme. Webster 
closed one of his speeches with the exclamation, " Libert} - and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." In these 
words he uttered what was in the hearts of multitudes, espe- 
cially of tlie settlers of the newer western states. 

Jackson and South Carolina. — Jackson had no special 
liking for the tariff, but he loved the Union as intensely as 
Webster. lie denied that a state could set aside a law of 

the United States merely because it disliked the law. If 
war should become necessary, he declared that in forty days 
he would have 40,000 men in South Carolina. Men knew 
that he would make his words good. Henry Clay wished 
to keep Jackson from leading an army into South Carolina, 
and suggested a compromise in Congress. By it the tariff 
was gradually reduced to the level of 1S16. Both sides 
claimed the victory, the United Slates because it had forced 
South Carolina to repeal its declaration against a tariff act, 
with all it had said about states' rights; South Carolina 
becauseit had forced Congress to lower the duties on imports. 
More Talk of Nullification. — South Carolina was not the 
only state where men talked of nullifying national laws. 



TALK OF NULLIFICATION 



-93 



The United States had a dispute with Great Britain about 
the northeastern boundary. The King of the Netherlands 
was asked to act as an arbitrator, and in 1831 recommended 
that the United States give up part of the territory on the 
borders of Maine. Maine and Massachusetts were opposed 
to the plan of settlement, for it would have taken from Maine 
territory that she claimed and from Massachusetts the owner- 
ship of lands in the same ter- 
ritory. Both declared through 
their legislatures that the 
United States had no power to 
cede any portion of a state 
without its consent. They did 
not say that they would with- 
draw from the Union or fight 
if the United States accepted 
the decision of the King of the 
Netherlands, but that they 
would treat the decision as 
null and void. All trouble be- 
tween the United States and 
the two northeastern states 
was avoided by setting aside 
the decision of the arbitrator 
and leaving the question of 
the boundary unsettled. 

Other Hard Questions. — The tariff was the principal 
tax by which the national government raised enough money 
to pay its expenses. How the tariff should also be used to 
give aid to American industries was a hard question. Other 
questions, equally hard, faced the legislators and officers of 
the states. How much was it safe to expend on roads, 
canals, and other internal improvements ? Should the state 
permit banks to issue paper money, when the states them- 
selves were forbidden by the Constitution to issue such 
money ? 

Still other questions faced the business men of the country, 




Map showing Disputed Bound- 
ary of Maine 



2Q4 



PROBLEMS OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



especially of the West. Was it wise to buy land for town sites, 
lay out streets and lots, on the chance that part of the great 
stream of emigration would turn in their direction and enrich 
those who were on the ground first? Should bankers lend 
money to men who would have nothing to pay the debt unless 
the town lots were bought speedily and the canals had a 
good deal of freight to carry? Was it right for a bank to 
issue paper money with very little coin in its vaults with 
which to redeem the notes ? 

Many of the canals were badly located and bound to fail. 
The main reason why they should have been planned more 
cautiously was the invention of the railroad and the loco- 
motive. Railroads did not put an end to the usefulness of 




Tin; FlRSl LOCOMOTIVE BUILT IN" THE UNITED States 
Drawn on the same scale as the modern locomotive shown behind it 

canals like the Brie, but they soon made many others un- 
profitable, causing the money expended upon them to be- 
come a total loss. 

The Locomotive. — No invention has had greater influence 
on American history than that of the locomotive. For this 
the world is chiefly indebted to George Stephenson, the son of 
an English laborer. The story is told that in 1S07 he wished 
to go to America, but found that he was too poor to pay his 
passage. As an engineer at a eoal mine he learned all about 
the Watt steam-engine. Stephenson thought something like 
it could be used on the railroads which were being built for 
horse-cars. About 1814 he invented his first locomotive, 
— a rough, noisy, weak machine, — but he proved that it 
could draw ears for every-day business. By 1825 he was able 
to secure its introduction in place of horse-power on the new 
railroads, which were short lines about a dozen miles in length. 



THE LOCOMOTIVE 



2 95 



^es jjrfte 




Introduction of the Locomotive in the United States. — 

The Erie Canal proved of so great benefit to business in New 
York City that other cities were anxious about their share 
of the western 
trade. Charleston, 
South Carolina, 
was the first to use 
one of the new lo- 
comotives on a rail- 
road some six miles 
long. This was in 
1830. Four years 
later the line was 
extended westward 
137 miles to the Sa- 
vannah River near 
Augusta. Mean- 
while the OWnerS Starts every morning, from the corner of Broad i Race St. 

of the short horse- '■ -'^^ ;^::^^J^r r ^.£^..^:^s^=:.^ 

car lines built from 
Baltimore and Phil- 
adelphia toward 
the West adopted 
the new power. 1 

The locomotives 
were improved and 



jillililllifliEj 



From Philadelphia To Pittsburgh, 

THROUGH Z1V 3 5 DAYS: 

From PITTSBURGH to LOUISVILLE. 




Passengers for Cincinnaii, Louis'ltle, Natchez, JVashfille, Si. Louis. Ac. 



OFFICE, ]» E CORNER OP FOURTH AND CKESNET ST 



s cirnsr/J^GS, A?v*. 



Advertisement showing Method of Travel 

from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in 1837 

Reduced facsimile 



gradually took the place of horses on all railroads. At first 
the locomotives could not climb steep grades or run very 

1 Peter Cooper built a locomotive for the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
road, as the Baltimore line was called, and because it was small he 
called it the "Tom Thumb." Men had doubted whether a locomotive 
could run around curves without leaving the track. Cooper proved 
that his could round even sharp curves. A race with a horse-car ended 
the trial trip on the double track near Baltimore. The horse started 
quicker, but the puffing engine soon gained headway and caught up 
with the horse. Then the race was neck and neck with the iron steed 
gaining as the horse grew tired, but a pulley slipped off the engine and 
the horse-car finished first. 



2y6 



PROBLEMS OF THE NEW I >KM< n "RACY 



swiftly. Fourteen or fifteen miles an hour was the best 
they could do. Railroad builders were slow in learning how 
to build the tracks in order to endure hard usage. At the 
hills the locomotives stopped, and stationary engines with 
ropes dragged the cars up an inclined plane to the top, where 
another locomotive took the cars on the journey. Philadel- 
phia used this system on part of the state highway to 
Pittsburgh, which was built to offset the advantage given 

to New York by the Erie 
Canal. 

Other Early Railroads. 
— Other regions became 
eager to have railroads. 
New ^York business men 
began short lines parallel 
to the Erie Canal. In 
1 84 1 Boston men began 
a railroad which was soon 
to reach Albany. The 
Raltimore and Ohio was 
steadily extended west- 
ward. By 1840 nearly 
3,000 miles of railway had 
been built in the United 
States. It was, however, another ten years before the great 
railway era opened. 

Cost of Railroads and Canals. — Some of the states which 
had borrowed money to build canals borrowed equally great 
sums to build railroads. Before 1838 Illinois borrowed for 
this purpose $7,400000, nearly as much as New York and 
Pennsylvania together had borrowed. Illinois at that time 
was a frontier state, rich in land, but with only little money. 
Chicago was still a village. The states together had already 
borrowed for canals and railroads over $100,000,000. The 
difficulty was that everybody had borrowed too much. How 
would Jackson treat the situation? 

Jackson destroys the Bank of the United States. — In 18 16 




A Railroad Train in 1831 
From an old print 



PANIC OF 1837 297 

a new Bank of the United States had been given a charter for 
twenty years. It was managed in such a way that it was 
always able to pay its notes in gold or silver. For this reason 
business men preferred its notes to the notes of the small 
state banks which sometimes were not paid. The state banks, 
therefore, wished to put an end to the Bank of the United 
States, which they said was trying to get all the business. 
The western fanners and the eastern workingmen also feared 
and hated the Bank. Jackson shared their feelings, mainly 
because he suspected that the Bank officials and their friends 
were meddling in politics and trying to control the govern- 
ment. His second campaign, in 1832, was fought on the 
question as to whether or not the Bank should be permitted 
to continue. 1 As he won, the Bank was obliged to close its 
relations with the United States by the time the charter 
ran out. 

Getting Rich Quickly. — An era of unregulated or " wild 
cat " banking now set in. The " Get-rich-quick " fever 
seized nearly every one. The state banks, as the states did 
before the new Constitution forbade it, issued vast quantities 
of paper money. In 1834 the amount was $94,000,000, and 
in 1837, $149,000,000. A measure which Jackson adopted 
made the trouble worse. He deposited government money, 
formerly deposited in the Bank of the United States, in other 
banks. These banks, which his enemies called "pet" banks, 
became even more reckless in lending money. Seeing that 
the fever of speculation had reached the danger point, the 
government officials tried to reduce it by medicine which 
nearly killed' the patient. 

Panic of 1837. — The remedy was an announcement that 
the government would receive in payment for land only gold 
and silver. Buyers had been permitted to pay in the notes 
of the state banks. The change meant that the little coin 
that was in the vaults of the state banks might be drawn out 
and that their notes would be less likely to be paid than before. 

1 The Bank secured a charter from Pennsylvania and continued to 
do business as a state bank until it failed in 1841. 



298 PROBLEMS OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY 

At the same time the eastern banks were affected by business 
depression in England. Englishmen tried to collect their 
loans and ceased buying cotton, so that the loans must be 
paid, if at all, in coin. Noweveryone who had lent began 
to fear the loss of his money and called upon borrowers 
to pay. The borrowers had not realized their dreams of 
wealth and had little with which to pay. Happily for 
Jackson, the crash did not come until his successor, Van 
Buren, had been inaugurated. Then banks, business houses, 
and factories failed, and thousands of workmen were thrown 
out of employment. It was five years before the country 
recovered from the after-effects of its first great fever of 
speculation. 

Trade Unions. — None were affected more by the prosper- 
ous times of Jackson's administration or by the miseries of 
Van Buren's than the workingmen. They were now numer- 
ous enough in the larger cities and factory towns to form trade 
ties and general trade unions. The men of each trade 
formed a trade society ; as, for example, the tailors or printers 
or shoemakers. Several trade societies of the same place 
formed together a general trade union. 

According to English laws, which were not repealed until 
1825, laborers who combined to gain high wages or to secure 
other benefits, especially by means of strikes, should be 
severely punished. The officials and judges in the United 
States at first treated the trade societies in the same way, 
sending their members to jail or fining them heavily. As 
the societies multiplied, this practice was abandoned. 

What the Workingmen were seeking. — The workingmen 's 
unions were, of course, interested in securing shorter hours of 
work and higher wages. They wished also to abolish the old 
system of imprisonment for debt and to obtain a general 
system of free public schools. 

The unions then as now brought on strikes, and sometimes 
successfully bargained with their employers. Men who could 
say to their employers, " Raise our wages, or we will go to 
the West and take up farms," had an advantage that no 



THE HUMANITARIANS 299 

European laborers possessed. The fact, that there was such 
an abundance of cheap land had a twofold effect on Ameri- 
can life: (1) intelligent and thrifty workmen were able to 
choose between the wages offered and the western farm, and 
(2) so many went West that the trade societies did not grow 
very strong. 

In some trades the employees were able to obtain a work- 
ing day of ten hours. When hard times came on with the 
panic of 1837, laborers found that work was the thing they 
needed most. President Van Buren, like Jackson, was 
especially interested in their demands, and in 1840 he fixed 
ten hours as the length of day for employees of the govern- 
ment, thus setting a good example to private employers. 

The Humanitarians. — The workingmen found the ballot 
their most useful weapon. In several cities they even formed 
separate political parties, but they usually voted with the 
Democratic party. They found allies in a group of men who 
took a deep interest in the welfare of the down-trodden and 
suffering everywhere. It was a period when intelligent men 
in England and Europe as well as America were growing more 
humane. In 1834 the " reformed " English parliament abol- 
ished slavery throughout the British empire. The leaders in 
this movement may be called humanitarians. Prominent 
among them in the United States were William Ellery Chan- 
ning, Horace Mann, and William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison 
founded a paper in Boston in 1831 and devoted his life to 
denouncing the system of slave labor and calling for its 
immediate abolition. Few people were won over by his 
violent language, or as yet took any great interest in the 
subject. 

Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt. — By 1840 the 
workingmen and humanitarians together brought to an end 
imprisonment for debt, a cruel practice which had come 
over from Europe. When Jackson became President 75,000 
persons were sent to jail as debtors every year. In Philadel- 
phia forty men were imprisoned for owing about sixty cents 
each. To make matters worse, the states as a rule failed to 



300 



PROBLEMS OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



furnish either food or clothing or fuel to the prisoners. They 
depended upon gifts for these, if their families could not care 
for them. Debtors were huddled together in the prisons 
with the worst criminals. 

Free Elementary Schools. — The greatest triumph of the 
humanitarians, the workingmen, and the fanners of the 
western states was the establishment of a system of schools, 

supported by taxation, in 
nearly every state East and 
West. The New England 
states had long before this 
tried to provide free schools 
for all boys. But they wire 
only partially successful. 
Elsewhere the "free schools" 
were for the children of the 
very poor and were really 
nothing more than " pauper 
schools." In most places the 
parents taught their own chil- 
dren or engaged a tutor for 
them, if they could afford one. 
The workingmen demanded free schools, supported out of 
taxes, for rich and poor alike. What is more, they kept the 
subject foremost and, with the help of educational reformers 
like Horace Mann, were generally successful. State after 
state voted that taxes should be used to establish elementary 
schools. The southern states, having no great body of 
free workingmen to ask for free schools, were an exception. 
These states, except South Carolina and North Carolina, 
made little effort to establish such schools, but continued to 
depend on family tutors or small private schools. In the 
West the states were aided by the wise system begun by the 
Congress of the Confederation of giving one section in each 
township for the benefit of the common schools. 

Girls admitted. — In colonial days girls were seldom 
admitted to the town schools, and then only at odd times 




Horace Mann 



SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 301 

when the boys were not in school. One writer says, " In all 
my school days, which ended in 1801, 1 never saw but three 
females in public schools, and they were only there in the 
afternoon to learn to write." l A more liberal attitude pre- 
vailed soon after this writer's school days closed. The towns 
which established free public schools for boys also opened 
them to girls. In a few of the older cities on the coast 
separate schools were established for the girls. But most 
towns were too poor to build two schools. Even in those 
which succeeded, the girls' school was not as good as that 
of the boys. 

High Schools. — The new interest in education led quickly 
to the founding of free high schools. 2 Boston had one in 182 1 , 
Philadelphia in 1839, and the number increased rapidly with 
each year. Many of the older towns had private academies, 
and did not find it necessary to start new schools. This 
was especially true where the old academies had money 
enough so that they could give a free education to the chil- 
dren of the town. Here too some cities built separate high 
schools for boys and girls, but the smaller and newer towns 
generally admitted the girls to the boys' high school as the 
better arrangement. 

Colleges and Universities. — Places of higher education 
also increased with the spread of the population west of the 
Alleghanies and with the growing prosperity of the whole 
country. The churches were especially active in establishing 
colleges for the frontier communities. The movement did 
not stop here. North Carolina in 1789 and South Carolina 
in 1 80 1 had begun the practice of establishing a university 
at state expense. With the organization of Ohio, Indiana, 
Michigan, and Illinois, the United States adopted the plan of 
giving to each new state or territory lands, from the sale of 

1 There were many small private schools for girls, but few could 
afford to attend them. 

2 See page 51. A few schools which were really high schools had 
been established in colonial days, but usually boys prepared for college 
at the private academies. 



602 



PROBLEMS OP THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



which they were to start a state university. 1 In 1819, chiefly 
through the influence of Jefferson, Virginia also established a 
university. These institutions had very small resources, and 
were little more than high schools. 

None of the new colleges admitted women, nor in fact did 
any of the older eastern colleges. 2 Many people thought that 
women should confine their studies to elementary subjects 

and their activities to the affairs 
of the home, and even more 
doubted the ability of women 
to succeed in the studies of the 
college. But the founders of 
Oberlin College believed that 
women should have the same 
opportunity as men, and in 1S33 
admitted both on the same 
terms. The movement for the 
education of women spread, at 
first chiefly through the founding 
of seminaries. Of these the 
most famous were the Mount 
Holyokc Seminary, established 
by Mary Lyon at South Hadley, 
Massachusetts, and the Troy Female Seminary by Emma 
Willard at Troy, New York. 

Newspapers, Magazines, and Books. — The teachers in 
the schools prepared young people to read and to understand 
what they read. The work of writers, as well as of teachers, 
had been greatly improved. Editors of newspapers, quick 
to see the changes taking place-, began to make their papers 
true mirrors of the time. Their articles erased to deal, as in 
colonial days, chiefly with pestilence and war, or with strange 
happenings in distant lands and earlier ages. They described 

1 This plan was first used by the United States in the sale of land to 
the ( >hio Company, in 1787, giving two townships for a university. 

- The University of Iowa, founded in 1856, was the first state uni- 
versity to open its doors to women. 




Mary Lyon 



NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, AND BOOKS 



303 



the daily life of the city where the paper was published. 
The fact that the post-office now carried newspapers as mail 
spread their influence into country districts. 

When Washington was President newspapers were 
founded to defend the measures of Hamilton and of Jeffer- 
son. Later others were published to support the new politi- 
cal parties. In 1829 a new kind of paper made its appear- 
ance. It was called the Workingman's Advocate. The 
editors were two young mechanics, and they took this way 
to promote the reforms that workingmen sought. They 
hoped to interest every toiler in the improvement of his lot. 





Washington Irving 

Magazines were also becoming more numerous. Some 
of the titles would seem strange to us. There was one at 
Philadelphia named The Monthly Repository of Knowledge 
and Rational Entertainment. Others, like The Christian 
Advocate, were started to advance the cause of religion. 
These magazines took the place in American homes held in 
colonial days by the almanacs. 

The writers of stories began to tell of the country in which 
they lived and of its past. Washington Irving related in 
Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow the legends of the 
Hudson and the Catskills which he had known so well as a 
boy. James Fennimore Cooper aroused a love of country 
by tales of American adventure, such as The Spy, the story 



304 PROBLEMS OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY 

of a spy who served John Jay during the Revolution, and 
The Pilot, the adventures of John Paul Jones at sea. The 
Last of the Mohicans described life in the deep forests of 
central New York, where Cooper spent his boyhood, and the 
Indians, now disappearing before the whites. What Irving 
and Cooper did to make the state of New York and its people 
interesting to Americans, others were doing for other regions. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote many stories of the Puritans 
in colonial New England : Mosses from an Old Manse, Twice 
Told Tales, The House of Seven Gables, and The Scarlet 
Letter. Hawthorne's friend and classmate at college, Henry 
W. Longfellow, professor at Harvard College, was writing 
his story-poems of American history. He told of the de- 
ported Acadians in Evangeline, of the early days in Plymouth 
Colony in The ( 'our 7 'ship of Miles Standish, and of life among 
the Indians in Hiawatha. Many other writers contributed 
to American literature. 

There were poems and stories of out-of-door life, such as 
William Cullen Bryant's To a Waterfowl, and Henry D. 
Thoreau's Life in the Woods. There were songs such as 
Home Sweet Home, by John Howard Payne, and The Old 
Oaken Bucket by Samuel Wood worth. According to many 
the mastercraftsman was Edgar Allen Poe, whose poems, 
The Raven, The Haunted Palace, The Conqueror Worm, and 
The Bells, showed that American writers, as well as those of 
Great Britain, knew the power and beauty of the English 
language. Americans still eagerly read the books which 
English writers produced. The novels of Walter Scott and 
of Charles Dickens were very popular in the United States. 
Those who had learned French, German, and Italian added 
the books of the Continent to their libraries, and so gained 
instruction and pleasure from the literature of the world. 

Questions 

I. What difficult problem did Jackson have to face? Why had 
the South at first supported a protective tariff? Why did it later 
oppose one? What authority did Calhoun think should be the final 
judge of the powers of the national government? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 305 

2. What step did South Carolina take in 1832? What different 
views did Calhoun and Webster hold about the Union ? What did 
Jackson say he would do if South Carolina resisted a law of the United 
States ? What was Clay's compromise ? Why did both parties to 
the dispute think they had won ? 

3. Where else did men talk about nullifying national acts? How 
was trouble with the northeastern states avoided ? 

4. What other difficult question did Jackson have to meet ? 

5. Why was the investment of so much money in canals a mistake ? 
Who invented the locomotive ? Where was it first used in the United 
States ? 

6. What cities soon had railroads? Why did the building of 
railroads give the states much trouble ? 

7. Why was the Bank of the United States unpopular? How did 
it come to an end ? Why did this bring on " wild-cat" banking ? 

8. What measure did Jackson adopt which made the "get-rich- 
quick" fever worse? What remedy did Jackson try next? How did 
the panic of 1837 affect the country? 

9. Describe the organization of the workingmen. How did the 
government at first deal with such organizations ? What were the 
unions seeking to do? What two great reforms did working people 
bring about with the help of reformers ? 

10. How were the western states aided in founding public schools? 
Why did most towns admit boys and girls to the same school ? What 
higher school did the towns begin establishing a little later ? 

1 1 . How did the new states secure colleges and universities ? Which 
was the first state to have a university of its own ? Which was the first 
college to admit women on the same terms as men ? 

12. How were the newspapers changing? The magazines? The 
books? What books told of the country in which Americans lived? 
Who were the writers of these books? What stories of the out-of- 
door life did the people now have? What poems showed the power 
and beauty of the English language? 

Exercises 

1 . Do we have a protective tariff to-day ? Prepare a list of articles 
protected by import duties. 

2. The members of the class should learn when the first railroad 
was built in their region. Did the state, the county, the township, 
or the town help build it ? 

3. Learn about some local trade union, when it was founded, its 
size, and objects. 

4. What caused the great panic of 1837? 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES BRING ON NEW QUESTIONS 

The Spaniards in Texas. — The Republic of Mexico bor- 
dered the United States on the southwest. Texas was the 
nearest of its provinces. The Spanish had known of Texas 
since Coronado's famous journey, but had done almost noth- 
ing towards its settlement. Enterprising priests and their 
helpers had built up several Indian mission villages, as they 
did in New Mexico and California, where they taught the 
Indians the Catholic religion and the methods of work of 
civilized men. The Indians did not like restraint and often 
broke away, resuming their old nomadic life. The Spanish 
explorers in Texas were not followed by eager settlers as 
explorers were in the United States. Two or three small 
white settlements, the chief one at San Antonio, formed the 
only centers of Spanish colonization. 

Pioneers open a New Region for Americans. — M( 
Austin and his son Stephen were the pioneers who pre- 
pared the way for the settlement of Texas. Moses Austin 
had moved from his birthplace in Connecticut to Pennsyl- 
vania, and then to western Virginia, and on to Missouri, 
where he founded a colony on what was still foreign soil. 
"With the restlessness of the pioneer, he and his son made 
plans for another colony in Texas. Frontiersmen were 
crowding to the western borders of the United States in 
search of land. Texas offered them all that was desired — 
fertile land, a mild and healthful climate, and abundant 
waterways for travel and trade. 

In 1820 the Austins applied for permission to settle in Texas 
and for grants of land. The Mexicans, who became inde- 
pendent the following year, made generous terms. The 
Austins had asked for six hundred and forty acres of land for 

306 



ANOTHER WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 



307 



each head of a family. They were given seven times as much, 
with an additional allowance for the wife, children, and slaves 
of each family. No wonder that the pioneers found it easy 
to persuade men to go to the new West ! Moses Austin died 
before the colonists were ready to start for the new lands, 
but his son carried out the plan. The little Spanish settle- 
ments of about 3,000 were increased fourfold in less than 
seven years. This was only the beginning. Most of the 
new settlers were from the United States, and chiefly, too, 
from the southern part. Many of them were planters with 










San Antonio in 1848 

slaves, who planned to raise cotton. Thus the slave system 
spread farther westward. 

Another War of Independence. — The people of Texas 
soon had trouble with the government of Mexico. In many 
ways it was the old story of discontent, revolution, and final 
independence. The Mexicans tried to stop immigration 
from the United States, abolished slavery, and withdrew 
nearly all the grants of land. The Texans paid no attention 
to these laws, kept the frontier open by force, and continued 
to bring in slaves. A war for independence followed. In 
this David Crockett, a famous frontiersman, lost his life. 
Volunteers poured in from the southern states to help the 
Texans. Their leader was General Sam Houston, a friend of 
Andrew Jackson. In 1836 Houston won a decisive victory 



308 RELATION'S WITH XEIOHRORIXO COUN'TRIES 



at San Jacinto, capturing the president of Mexico and 
destroying his entire army. This ended the war. Texas 
adopted a form of government resembling that of the United 
States. It contained, however, provisions expressly for- 
bidding the emancipation of slaves. 

The Republic of Texas, 1836-1845. — The new repub- 
lic claimed the territory lying along the Gulf coast from 
the borders of the United States to the Rio Grande River. 

It was large enough to 
contain 45 states like 
Massachusetts, or larger 
than Great Britain and 
France taken together. 
Mexico did not acknowl- 
edge that Texas was in- 
dependent, much less that 
its boundaries extended 
to the Rio Grande. But 
Texas was in no more 
danger of being recon- 
quered by Mexico than 
Mexico and the other 
Spanish-American repub- 
lics were of being recon- 
quered by Spain. 




Map of the Republic of Texas 

Showing territory claimed by Texas 



Shall Texas be annexed? — In 1836 the people of Texas 
asked to be admitted into the Union as a state. A few years 
earlier every section of the United States had wanted to 
acquire Texas. Presidents Adams and Jackson had in turn 
tried to purchase it from Mexico. Now the request of Texas 
was rejected. Since the quarrel in Congress over slavery in 
the Louisiana Territory and the Missouri Compromise, many 
northern people were unwilling to admit any territory where 
slave laborers could work profitably. Others were anxious 
to avoid further dispute over the subject. Besides, Presi- 
dent Van Buren thought that the United States ought not 
to take territory from a friendly neighbor, for Mexico con- 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 



309 



tinued to claim Texas. There the matter rested for several 
years. Mexico, however, made no serious effort to reconquer 
her lost province. 

Our Canadian Neighbors secure Self -Government. — The 
war of Texas for independence was scarcely over when a strug- 
gle broke out in Canada. In Lower Canada, or the Province 
of Quebec — the old French colony — a large majority of the 
people were descendants of the original French population. 
Upper Canada, now Ontario, had been settled by English- 
speaking people from the United States and Great Britain. 
In both Canadas British officials, supported by the older 
British families, governed. The French and the recent 
immigrants were left out. In 1837 the French took up arms. 
Some of their leaders hoped to establish an independent 
republic at Quebec. A few of the Upper Canadians also rose 
in rebellion, seeking to secure a share in the government. 
Both rebellions were put down, but England took warning, 
doubtless recalling the manner in which she had lost thir- 
teen colonies in America. The two Canadian provinces were 
united, and then permitted to govern themselves. In name 
they were still under the British crown ; in fact they formed 
a free republic. The other British colonies in America — 
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island — as 
well as other British colonies in Australia and South Africa 
soon gained the same privileges without a struggle. 

The Westward Movement in Canada. — Canada, as well as 
the United States, had a westward movement. While the 
Quebec and Montreal regions remained chiefly French, thou- 
sands of immigrants from the British Isles went annually to 
Upper Canada. Others left their small or worn-out farms 
in New England, New York, or Pennsylvania, and moved 
across the border. The nearness and cheapness of the lands 
attracted many who dreaded the longer journey into the 
Mississippi Valley. The same steady stream of pioneers 
pushed to the frontier on each side of the St. Lawrence and 
the Great Lakes. Canals were built around the rapids in the 
St. Lawrence, and the Welland Canal between Lake Erie and 



3io RELATIONS WITH NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES 

Lake ( Mitario made the north shore as accessible to the sea by 
way of Quebec, as the south was by the Erie Canal through 
New York. 

The Hudson Bay Company in the Northwest. — The 
settlers never went far from the St. Lawrence waterway. 
The great Northwest was still unsettled — the haunt of the 
trapper and the fur trader. The lonely stations of the 
Hudson Bay Company stretched from the outskirts of Upper 






m 



••72.- 




■ - - - ■ " 

Trading Post of the American Pur Company at Fond di; 
Lac, near Duluth 

From a sketch made in 1828 

Canada to Hudson Bay and Alaska and Oregon. The com- 
pany's officers opposed settlement, for that would disturb 
the work of the trapper and the Indian trader. But they had 
little fear for the security of their vast domain. Certainly n< i 
One then dreamed of farming in the cold northern land. The 
only signs of coming conflict with the pioneer were on the 
Columbia River in Oregon. 

Trail Makers. — In America land-seeking never erased. 
Pioneers followed the trail of the Indian and the trapper, 
and carried civilization into Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. 
In the Rocky Mountains, fur traders from St. Louis were the 
advanced guard. As a century earlier such men had made 
their way through the Alleghanies into Ohio and Kentucky, 



ON THE OREGON TRAIL 



311 



they now marked out trails across the prairies and found the 
passes through the Rocky Mountain barrier. The Oregon 
Trail followed the Missouri and the Platte Rivers, across the 
mountains at South Pass into Oregon. At Westport Land- 
ing on the Missouri River, now Kansas City, a trail started 
which extended 700 miles across the prairies to Sante Fe. 
A third, the California Trail, branched from the Oregon Trail. 
On the Oregon Trail. — The boldest pioneers in the United 
States followed the Oregon Trail to Oregon. Missionaries 
to the Indians entered soon after the trappers and traders 




The Principal Western Trails 

and then settlers entered. Many men went out of pure love 
of adventure,, as one quaintly said, "Because the thing 
wasn't fenced and nobody dared to keep 'em out." For 
whatever reason they migrated to Oregon, they were mak- 
ing it real American soil more rapidly than the Hudson Bay 
Company was making it English. 

For protection against the Indians the emigrants journeyed 
in caravans. Each family traveled with its household goods 
in a large canvas-covered wagon, called a prairie schooner, 
much like the Conestoga wagon of the earlier frontier. 
Riding horses were taken for use on the way, and cattle for 
stock in" the new country. Each man had his duties as scout, 
hunter, or watchman for the party. The caravan camped 
at night where water and grazing land could be found, with 



312 



RELATIONS WITH NEIGHBORING rulWTRIES 



wagons drawn up like a circular fort. By day they moved 
slowly over the prairies and the mountain trails. Such a 
I olgrimage lasted three or four months. Births and weddings 
and deaths were frequent interruptions of such little migrat- 
ing worlds. Francis Parkman lias told the story of life on 

the Oregon Trail as 
he saw it in 1846. 

Americans settle 
Oregon. — In 1843 
the settlers in Ore- 
gon, in true pioneer 
style, formed a gov- 
ernment for them- 
selves and so laid the 
foundations for later 
states in the Far 
West. Explorers, 

missionaries, and pio- 
neers had seemingly 
won southern Ore- 
gon, at least, for the 
United States. Both 
England and the 
United Stateselaimed 
the whole territory 
from California to Alaska, and for the time being held it 
jointly. A few American statesmen thought that nature 
had fixed the Rocky Mountains, bordered as they were with 
deserts of sand, as the final western limit. They scoffed at 
the settlement of Oregon and opposed its annexation. . Others 
held a different opinion. Senator Thomas Benton, himself a 
pioneer of Missouri, championed the cause of Oregon in Con- 
gress. He had great faith in the future of the West, even to 
the shores of the Pacific. The majority of the American 
people agreed with him. They even talked about war with 
England, asserting that they must have all the territory south 
of the parallel 54 40' "or fight." 




Pass through the Mountains on the 
Oregon Trail 
Sweetwater Gap 



BOUNDARY DISPUTES 



313 



Boundary Disputes. — John Tyler was then President. 
He had been elected as Vice-President, but General William 
Henry Harrison, the Whig candidate who had won the elec- 
tion of 1840, died within a month after his inauguration. 
Tyler had more sympathy with the Democrats than with the 
Whigs. The only Whig who remained in his cabinet was 
Webster. In 1842 Webster signed a treaty with the British 
minister Ashburton settling the boundary dispute on the 
northern border of Maine. 
Like most agreements of that 
kind, the treaty was a com- 
promise, each side giving up its 
extreme claims. No progress 
was made in deciding the Oregon 
question. 

On the question of Texas, 
Webster. and Tyler did not agree, 
for Tyler was anxious to annex 
Texas. Calhoun was, accord- 
ingly, made Secretary of State, 
and he signed a treaty of an- 
nexation with Texas. When 
it was sent to the Senate for 
approval, the senators voted against it 35 to 16. This made 
the question an issue in the election of 1844. Clay, the Whig 
candidate, had been opposed to annexation, while the plat- 
form of James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate, declared 
not only that Texas should be annexed, but also that the 
whole of Oregon to the parallel 54 40' should be held. Polk 
wished, furthermore, to gain California. He was successful 
in the election, although he had only 40,000 votes more than 
Clay. This meant that Texas would surely be annexed, and 
Oregon and California, too, if Polk could find a way to obtain 
them. 

Questions 

1 . What had the Spaniards done toward colonizing Texas ? What 
American formed a plan for the settlement of Texas? What terms 




Daniel Webster 
After a daguerreotype of 1850 



314 RELATIONS WITH NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES 

was he able to obtain from Mexico? Why were the Mexicans so 

libera] ? What success had the Austins? 

2. What were the causes of the Texan war of independence? How 

long diil Texas remain an independent republic? Why was the request 
of Texas fur annexation at first rejected by the United States? 

3. What caused the rebellion in Canada in [837? What changes 
did Great Britain make in the government of Canada? Where else 
were liberal privileges of government allowed? 

4. I )escribe the westward movement in Canada. From what parts 
of the United States did emigrants go to Canada? Where did they 
settle' Why did they go there in preference to the western part of 
the United States ? 

5. What region did the Hudson Bay Company occupy? Where 
were the fur traders coming into conflict with the pioneers? 

6. What new barrier did the trail-makers pass? What trails did 
they make ? 

7. Describe emigration over the Oregon Trail. What step toward 
permanent occupation did the Oregon settlers take in 1843 ? 

8. What arrangement did the United States have with England 
about Oregon ? What opinion did Americans have of the country ? 

9. How was the northeastern boundary dispute with England 
finally settled ? 

10. What was the main issue in the presidential election of 1844? 
What did Polk and his party wish to do ? 

Exercises 

1. Review the northward movement of Spanish settlers from 
Mexico. See pages 193-4. 

2. Compare the reasons for seeking independence in the three 
Revolutions, (1) Texan, (2) Spanish American, and (3) The English 
Colonics, pages 136, 149, 279-280. 

3. Prepare a map of Texas, on the same scale as that of Texas in 
any geography, and place it on a map of the United States with the 
center on Nashville. What part of the larger map does the map of 
Texas cover ? Compare the area and population of Texas with that of 
Japan. 

Important Dates : 

1842. The United States and Great Britain peaceably settle the 
northeastern boundary dispute. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

HOW THE UNITED STATES WON THE PACIFIC COAST 

Annexation of Texas. — The Democrats, victorious in the 
election of 1844, did not wait until Polk was inaugurated 
before carrying through the annexation of Texas. Some of 
them believed the rumors which were flying about that Eng- 
land was preparing to acquire California and possibly Texas. 
As they did not have votes enough in the Senate to ratify a 
treaty of annexation with the Republic of Texas, they 
adopted the plan of annexing it by a resolution passed both 
by the House of Representatives and the Senate. The vote 
in the Senate was close — 27 to 25. The resolution was 
passed March 1, 1845, and was accepted by Texas in 
December. 

Annexation alone would probably not have brought on a 
war with Mexico, but Polk had other plans which did. He 
insisted that the Rio Grande River, instead of the Nueces 
River, was the southern boundary of the new state. He also 
supported the Texans in claiming that Texas included at 
least part of New Mexico. Furthermore, he meant to have 
California, by purchase, if possible, but at all events to 
have it. 

The California Question. — California in 1845 was an out- 
lying, neglected province of Mexico. Its missions had fallen 
into decay and most of the Indians had left the mission vil- 
lages. The inhabitants were mainly Spaniards and Mexicans 
occupied in raising cattle. California was worth much more 
than the $25,000,000 Polk was ready to give, but that was 
not the reason why the Mexicans did not wish to sell. 
When Polk sent a special agent to bargain with them, they 
would not receive him and began to prepare for war. Polk 
now determined to seize the territory between the Nueces 

315 



316 



THE WINNING OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



and the Rio Grande. He also planned to ask Congress to 
declare war because the Mexicans would not receive his 
representative or settle the differences with the United 
States. He had a real grievance in the long delay of the 
Mexicans to pay damages for American property which 
they had destroyed during the civil wars since the overthrow 
of the Spanish government. 

Outbreak of War. — The Mexicans soon gave him a better 
excuse. When General Zachary Taylor, upon Polk's orders, 




View or San Prancisco in 1847 
With American ships in the h;irl»>r 

advanced to the banks of the Rio Grande, the Mexicans 
attacked him. As soon as Polk heard of the attack he placed 
the blame for war upon he Mexicans, declaring in a message 
to Congress that, " Mexico has passed the boundary of the 
United States, has invaded our erritory, and shed American 
blood upon the American soil " Congress did not declare 
war upon Mexico, but adopted an act " for the prosecution 
of the existing war." The anti-slavery men were violently 
opposed to the war, because they believed its purpose was to 
add more territory in which slaves could be held. 

The Oregon Compromise. — As soon as Polk knew that he 
was likely to have a war with Mexico on his hands, he was 




Longitude West 107 from Ore* 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO, 1846-1847 



3i7 



; «]Verio». -ft, 



Tuv 



willing to give up the extreme claims of the United States 
in the dispute with Great Britain over Oregon. If he in- 
sisted on demanding, as his party had done in the recent 
election, " 54 40' or fight," he might have drawn the country 
into a war with England, and that was not the same as a vvar 
with Mexico. Polk, therefore, quietly offered to accept 
the 49th parallel as the dividing line. This parallel was 
the northern boundary of the United States east of the 
Rocky Mountains. The 
same offer had been made 
several times since 18 18, 
but the English had not 
been ready to accept it. 
The treaty was made in 
June, 1846. The bar- 
gain was fair to both 
sides and a wise settle- 
ment of the dispute. The 
territory included the 
present states of Oregon, 
Washington, and Idaho. 

The War with Mexico, 
1 846- 1 847. — The war 
with Mexico lasted less 
than two years, though 

this was longer than Polk had expected. General Taylor took 
possession of the sparsely settled provinces of northern Mexico 
after hard fighting at Monterey and Buena Vista. General 
Kearny led a smaller force from Fort Leavenworth over the 
SanteFe Trail to California, seizing New Mexico on the way. 
He found California already in the hands of an American naval 
force. It could hardly be called the conquest of California, 
for there was no Mexican army to conquer and the Cali- 
fornians offered little resistance. 

In 1847 Polk sent General Winfield Scott to make a direct 
attack on the capital of Mexico. Scott followed closely the 
route of Cortes into the heart of the country. The natives 




_i byjreaty with Spain, 1819. 
M E X 1 ) I C O 



The Oregon Compromise 



3i« 



THE WINNING OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



outnumbered the invaders and fought with all the fury of 
the Aztecs, but the better organization, discipline, and leader- 
ship of the American troops won. The ancient capital of 
Mexico was taken and the last army of resistance broken up. 




tv'tl^lu . 



3& d \* 




Map of the Mexican War 

Terms of Peace with Mexico, 1848. — In 1848 Polk made 
his own terms of peace with the feeble government which 
was left in Mexico. Many urged that all of Mexico be 
annexed, but Polk was satisfied to leave the unfortunate 
republic independent, although humiliated and crippled. He 
compelled the Mexican government to acknowledge that the 
Rio Grande River was the boundary of Texas and to give 
up New Mexico and California. He had been ready to 



DISCOVERY OP GOLD 



319 



pay something for this territory, and he now agreed to give 
$15,000,000 directly, besides $3,500,000 to those Americans 
who claimed damages from Mexico. 1 

Discovery of Gold in California, 1848. — One part of the 
new territory awakened immediate interest. A few days 
before Mexico agreed to the terms of peace, gold was discov- 
ered in California. Some laborers engaged in building a saw- 
mill in the Sacramento Valley turned up the earth and found 
yellow grains which proved to be gold. They soon discovered 
more, widely scattered in the sand. The news spread. Saw- 
mills, farms, and shops lost their interest for the settlers of 




Sacramento in 1848 

California. All were abandoned. Even the courts were 
closed for want of anybody to attend them. A ship which 
came to anchor in San Francisco Bay was immediately de- 
serted by the crew. The captain saw nothing better to do 
and set off for the diggings, leaving his ship under the care of 
his wife. Within a year $5,000,000 worth of gold had been 
taken out and during the next ten years nearly one hundred 
times as much. Many of the American people, therefore, 
looked upon the war with Mexico as a piece of good fortune. 

1 Trouble arose over the location of the boundary between the Rio 
Grande and the Colorado Rivers, and in 1853 the United States avoided 
war by purchasing from Mexico a strip of territory south of the Gila 
River. It was called the Gadsden Purchase from James Gadsden, who 
was the purchasing agent. 



3 2 ^ 



THE WINNING OF I HE PACIFU I I I 



"The Forty-niners." The discovery of gold in Califor- 
nia gave the westward movement a new turn. The adven- 
turers who wont out the next year, the " Forty-niners," were 
more like the Argonauts of old or Do Soto's men seeking the 
El Dorado in North America than the other pioneers. Emi- 
grants from Europe and from the eastern states sailed around 
Cape Horn or crossed the Isthmus of Panama. Those who 
went by the Isthmus of Panama rode mules across the 
narrow pass, braving the dangers of tropical fever and of 
robber bands. Steamboats, which were just coming into use 




The Overland Route to California 

for long voyages, found crowds at New York and Panama 
clamoring for passage. 

The favorite route for most American immigrants started 
on the Missouri and followed the Oregon Trail and its branch 
to California. Caravans of prairie schooners, cavalcades of 
horsemen, the poorer adventurers afoot, dotted the trail on 
the desert plains. Their number made the Oregon migra- 
tion seem small by comparison. On the trail the " Forty- 
niners " passed Salt Lake where the Mormons, 1 a new reli- 
gious sect, were irrigating the sage-brush plain and turning it 
into fertile farmland. They had discovered the true source 
of wealth, as the Californians were later to learn. 

A few of the " Forty-niners " found fortunes, but most of 

1 The Mormons built their first "temple" at Kirtland, Ohio, in 1836. 
They reache 1 Utah in 1847. 



CALIFORNIA 



321 



them made barely enough to pay their expenses, and all 
suffered hardships in fever-ridden, half-famished camps. 
Prices rose faster than gold could be dug to meet them. 
Spades and shovels were $10 apiece ; a shirt cost $40 ; a 
candle, $3 ; a barrel of pork, $200. The average profit in 
digging gold never exceeded $1,000 a year. 

The discovery of gold affected many persons besides the 
miners who went to California. It increased the amount of 
money. Business men could borrow on easier terms for 
their enterprises. The consequence was a new period of 
feverish activity, like that which followed the building of the 
National Road, the Erie Canal, and the first railroads. 




Colton Hall, Monterey, the First Capitol of California 

California Ready to become a State. — The population of 
California grew by leaps and bounds. Within two years it 
had increased tenfold. The old Spanish and Mexican pop- 
ulation was only a small part of the whole. San Francisco 
changed from a village into one of the large cities of the 
United States, with 20,000 inhabitants. It was a real babel 
of languages — English, German, Spanish, Hawaiian, Chi- 
nese, and Malay. California in 1849 formed a government of 
its own and was ready to enter the Union. As the people 
were almost all free workingmen, it is not surprising that they 
forbade slavery entirely. The desire of the settlers that 
California should be admitted to the Union without slavery 
again raised the slavery question, dividing men in the South 
and the North into two hostile groups. It threw all other 



322 



THE WINNING OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



questions into the background and became the principal 
political issue. 

A Frontier on the Pacific. — The acquisition of California 
and the establishment of the American claim to Oregon 
secured a new frontier. The United States now faced the 
Pacific Ocean as well as the Atlantic. It had ceased to be 
chiefly an outlying part of Great Britain and Europe, offering 
new homes to those who wished to leave the old, and had 
become a world, looking eastward toward Europe and west- 
ward toward Asia, desiring friendship and commerce with 
both. One reason why the government was so eager to 



#*. ~v; J- 








A Mexican Home in the Old Town of San Diego, California 

Ramona is said to have been married here 

obtain California was to open a more direct trade with China 
and the Pacific islands. In 1844 China had agreed to permit 
Americans to trade in five ports. Ten years later, Japan, 
also long closed to foreigners, opened ports to American 
traders. American missionaries were already influential in 
the Hawaiian Islands. 

Questions 

1. Why were the Democrats in a hurry to annex Texas? How did 
they bring it about ? 

2. What plans had Polk which brought on war with Mexico ? What 
real grievances did the United States have against Mexico? How 
did the war actually begin? Who was to blame? Why were the anti- 
slavery men opposed to the war ? 

3. How did Polk secure Oregon? Did he obtain all of the Oregon 
count rv ? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 



323 



4. What did Taylor's, Kearny's, and Scott's armies accomplish in 
the war ? Why were they victorious ? 

5. What were Polk's terms of peace with Mexico ? 

6. What event of 1848 made the war with Mexico seem particularly 
timely to many Americans? Describe the migration of the "Forty- 
niners." 

7. What new settlement did the "Forty-niners" pass on the Cali- 
fornia trail ? How did the majority of the California gold-seekers 
finally find wealth ? How did the discovery of gold affect business in 
the United States ? 

8. Describe California in 1850. Why did the Californians forbid 
slavery ? 

9. What further effect had expansion on the United States ? What 
foreign trade privileges were gained about this time? 



Exercises 

1 . Compare the ways by which the government of the United 
States annexed Louisiana and Texas. 

2. Was the war with Mexico honorable to the United States? 

3. Why may the migration of the "Forty-niners" be compared to 
the Argonauts or De Soto's El Dorado seekers ? 

4. Compare the area of California with that of some of the older 
states. 

Important Dates: 

1845. Texas annexed. . 

1846. Oregon secured by a compromise with Great Britain, and 

the war with Mexico begins. 
1848. Discovery of gold. 




Sutter's Fort in 1848 
Near which gold was first found in California 



CHAPTER XXX 
A GREAT DOMAIN, NEW TOOLS, AND WILLING HANDS 

The Domain. — In 1850 the territory of the United States 
stretched westward from the Mississippi River across the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Most of the region 
was unoccupied except by roving tribes of Indians. Iowa had 
been a state only four years ; Wisconsin only two. Minne- 
sota had become a territory the year before. Where were 
men and women to be found to carry the line of settlement 
across this vast domain? The newer states apparently 
needed all their people for their own unfinished tasks. If 
men and women could be found, how were they to reach 
places so distant ? The immigrant and the railroad were 
the answers to these questions. 

Railroads. — At the time California was obtained, only a 
few short railroad lines existed in the Mississippi Valley. 
None had yet crossed the great Alleghany ranges from the 
East. Finally, in 1853, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
reached Wheeling, and the next year the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road was completed to Pittsburgh. Already, in 1852, two 
railroads entered Chicago : the Michigan Central from De- 
troit and the Michigan Southern from Toledo. By 1855 
travelers could go by rail from New York to St. Louis. 
During the ten years from 1850 to i860 the number of miles of 
railway was tripled. If all the railroads had been put end to 
end they would have circled the earth, with 5,000 miles to 
spare. 

The early railroads were usually built with the aim of con- 
necting the great waterways. This had been the purpose of 
the canals, but they were closed by ice several months each 
year. The Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio rail- 
roads were intended to connect Philadelphia and Baltimore, 

324 



RAILROADS 



325 



the eastern rivals of New York, with the rivers of the Ohio 
and Mississippi valleys. The Michigan roads cut off the 
long route by the Straits of Mackinac from the lower lakes 
to Chicago. 

The railroads soon ceased to be mere connecting links. 
They were built even on the banks of the Hudson River and 
along the shore of Lake Erie, challenging the steamboat in the 
race for trade. As a result new routes of trade sprang up, 
independent of lake and river and sea-coast. The route on 
the Mississippi River to the Gulf lost some of its importance, 




***»- Railroads in operation in 1850 Railroads completed between 1850 and 1860. 

Railroads in Operation in the Northern States in i860 

and the relations between the West and the East became 
closer than those between the West and the South. Settle- 
ment, too, moved along these east and west lines. The 
railroads thus became an important geographical feature 
added by man to the natural features of river, lake, and 
mountain. 

The growth of towns was affected by such changes. The 
future of a city was doubly assured if it was served by both 
water route and railroad. This was especially true of cities 
on the Great Lakes — a water route unrivaled in the world. 
After the St. Mary's ship-canal locks were completed, steam- 
boats could go from the western end of Lake Superior 
to the eastern shore of Lake Erie. They carried the iron 



326 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW DOMAIN 



ores of the Lake Superior region to Chicago, Detroit, Cleve- 
land, and Buffalo. To these cities the railroad brought the 
coal of western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. The con- 
sequence was that they began manufacturing iron and steel. 
Chicago, so near the southern end of Lake Michigan, had a 
further advantage. It was the western end of almost all the 
railroads from the East, and the starting-point of those to 
the newer West. As early as 1850 a railroad ran west from 
Chicago as far as Elgin. As the railroad decreased the 

importance of waterways, Cincin- 
nati and New Orleans lost part of 
their supremacy in the trade of the 
Mississippi Valley. 

The Telegraph.— While the rail- 
road was binding the country to- 
gether in many directions, a net- 
work of telegraph wires was adding 
to the means of communication. 
The telegraph assisted the employees 
of railroads in managing trains, but 
it was equally important in enabling 
the business man to send orders or 
obtain information from distant 
places in a few minutes. 
The inventor of the telegraph was Samuel F. B. Morse, a 
professor in New York University. He thought out a plan 
for sending messages over a wire, and made a rough instru- 
ment which did what he expected. As he could get no one to 
help him build a telegraph line, lie appealed to Congress for 
aid. For several years Congress refused to grant money, 
but finally gave him $^0,000 with which to build an experi- 
mental line between Washington and Baltimore. This was 
completed in 1844, in time to carry to Washington the news 
of the nomination of James K. Polk to the Presidency within 
fifteen minutes after the Democratic convention at Balti- 
more had reached its decision. Morse's triumph convinced 
doubting business men. Private companies built lines. In 




Samuel F. B. Morse 



STEAMSHIPS 



327 



1848 Ezra Cornell completed a line from New York to Cleve- 
land, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee. 

A Revolution in the Post-Office. — A change in the charges 
made by the post-office for carrying letters was almost as 
important as the invention of the telegraph. The rates had 
been so high that ordinary persons could not afford to write 
often to friends or business associates living at a distance. 
A single sheet cost six cents for 30 miles, ten cents between 
30 and 80 miles, and so on, until the cost rose to 25 cents 
for all distances 
over 400 miles. 
In 1851 Congress 
fixed the rate at 
three cents with- 
in the country. 1 
The rates for 
newspapers re- 
mained high. 

Steamships. — 
While the railroad 
was providing for 
travel from the Atlantic seaboard to the interior, the steam- 
boat was making it easier to reach America. Sailing ships 
also made the trip more quickly than in earlier days. The 
Americans had learned to build a ship called the " clipper," 
which could make three voyages between Europe and Amer- 
ica while a British ship was making two. These ships by 
their superiority were pushing the English hard in the race 
for ocean trade. They were particularly successful in the 
long voyages required in the trade with China. Sometimes 
these splendid vessels raced from Chinese ports to New York, 
eager to land the first cargoes of the new crop of tea. But 
the creation of the iron steamship meant their ruin sooner 
or later. 

In England timber was scarce, but iron and coal were 
cheap. About a quarter of the ships which the English built 

1 In 1883 the rate of postage on letters was reduced to two cents. 




An American Clipper 



325 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW DOMAIN 



in 1853 were of iron. Fifteen years before this a British 
line of steamships began regular trips between England 
and the United States. Excellent though the clippers were, 
they could not compete with the steamship. The first 




51 * M^^tf- 1 . 






$*>-'' * } 



The Old Way of Reaping 



ocean steamships often required fifteen days for the voyage, 
but by 1847 they had lowered the time to eleven days. 

New Tools for the Farm. — The farmer's task in making 
the land productive was rendered easier by the invention of 
new machinery. The sickle and scythe began to give place 
to the mowing-machine and the harvester, and the flail to 




! 
The First Type of McCormick Reaper 

the threshing machine. Horserakes, cultivators, and corn 
planters appeared. The invention of harvesting machinery 
was chiefly the work of Cyrus McCormick of Virginia. His 
father had tried for years to make a successful machine for 
cutting grain, and young McCormick took up the problem 
where his father left it. He soon constructed a reaper which 



TOOLS FOR OTHER WORK 329 

was fairly successful. After it had been improved it was able 
to do the work of twenty men, not only cutting the grain, 
but also binding it and laying it in windrows. 

The threshing machine was equally successful. In 1855 
at the World's Fair in Paris, six threshers with flails were 
set at work beside one of the American machines. In half 
an hour the machine threshed ten times as much wheat as the 
men. Such farm machinery increased the demand for west- 
ern land. Thus the line of settlement moved westward faster 
than ever. 

Tools for Other Work. — The settlement of the country 
was helped by the invention of other tools which were not 




The First Copy of "The Sun" — a Penny Newspaper 

connected directly with farm work. The steam hammer 
made the tasks of the iron worker easier. The planing 
machine aided the carpenter. The rotary or cylindrical press 
helped the printer. Some newspapers ventured to reduce the 
price from 6 cents a paper to a cent, and declared that they 
would bring all the news of the day within the means of 
everybody. 1 The steam-engine supplied them with power, 
and the telegraph brought in fresh news, and so increased 
their usefulness as teachers of the people. The newspapers, 
in turn, made profitable work for the telegraph, and hastened 
its extension throughout the country. 

1 The New York Daily Sun, 1833, was the first penny newspaper. 
Two years later, James Gordon Bennett started another, the New York 
Herald. Horace Greeley, in 1841, founded the New York Tribune; 
ten years later Henry J. Raymond established the New York Times. 
The price of these was later increased to two cents. 



33° 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW DOMAIN 




The sewing machine, one of the most useful of the newer 
inventions, was completed by Elias Howe in 1846. He had 
planned it several years earlier, but was too poor to pay the 
cost of construction. His first machine in a sewing race 
distanced five of the swiftest hand sewers. It earned him 
a fortune and lightened the burdens of women. The prin- 
ciple of the sewing machine was soon used in constructing 
machines for sewing leather and making shoes. Machines 
were also invented which cut and 
sewed button-holes., 

Other inventions, cook stoves, base- 
burners, and furnaces made the home 
more comfortable and the work of the 
housewife easier. Americans borrowed 
from Europe the invention of the 
match. In a multitude of ways the 
needs of life were met by the ingenuity 
of thoughtful men and women. Over 
23,000 different articles were patented 
between 1850 and i860. 
Why the Immigrants came. — The ways of living in 
Europe and Great Britain were changed as rapidly as in the 
United States. Indeed, in England the factory system de- 
veloped much faster. Railroads were multiplied. Life for 
the well-to-do became more comfortable, but for the common 
man and his family the lands of opportunity lay beyond the 
seas. They were not the United States merely, but also 
Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The United States 
proved far more attractive to the European emigrant than 
all the other countries together. 

Between [845 and 1850 several events swelled the stream 
of emigration. In 1S45 ar >d x 846 the failures of crops caused 
much distress in Great Britain and Europe. The potato 
crop, the principal article of food of the Irish peasantry, was 
a total failure. All that private charity and government 
help could do was not enough to prevent terrible suffering. 
Nearly a million persons perished from starvation or fever. 



Howe's Sewing 

Machine 



IMMIGRATION FROM THE OLDER STATES 331 

The government repealed the " corn " laws which taxed 
grain, but this remedy came too late. Thousands sailed for 
America. A quarter of the population of Ireland was lost 
from famine, fever, and emigration. 

In 1848 Germany was again in the midst of a revolution. 
The more progressive leaders, weary of the system which 
gave power to the rulers and to a clique of nobles, attempted 
first to found a new German empire and then a republic. 



i ' ? 



^iFMp 







ta 






m 

Broadway, New York City, as it Appeared at This Time 

They were defeated by the aristocratic party and many of 
them fled to the United States. Others came to better their 
lot. Between 1846 and 1856 a million Germans entered the 
country. Some, like Carl Schurz, soon became leaders in its 
political struggles. 

It was not strange that the new " pilgrims " turned their 
faces toward America, which offered them cheap lands, light 
taxes, work for all, and equality with their neighbors. The 
Irish commonly remained in the towns and cities of the coast 
states. The Germans went to the frontier — Wisconsin, 
Iowa, Missouri, Texas, — wherever good land was to be had. 

Immigration from the Older States. — The older northern 
states also contributed their share of settlers to the new 
West. Families were still large, and the sons and daughters 



332 DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW DOMAIN 

accepted the common advice of the time, " Go West, young 
man ! " A constant stream of young people from the states 
farther east mingled with the strangers from Europe in 
making the new settlements amid the prairies and forests of 
the Mississippi Valley. Children of Scotch-Irish, German, 
and English descen from Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
New York, and New England were in the migration. It 
sometimes seemed that whole villages of New England were 
going to empty themselves into the more fertile farm lands 
of the West. The names of the towns often suggested the 
eastern homes of their founders. Springfield, Quincy, and 
Pittsfield in Illinois showed the tracks of the sons of Massa- 
chusetts in the westward movement. Congregational 




iiMtWwi 



2&X 

Plowing a Southern Cotton Field 

churches sprang up wherever the New Englandcrs went. 
Even the New England town meeting once a year to choose 
officers and discuss own business was transplanted into 
Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 

To " Go West " was easier than it had been before the days 
of canals, steamboats and railways. Unless the immigrant 
from the older states or from Europe wished to seek lands far 
beyond the Mississippi, he was no longer obliged to travel for 
weeks on horseback or in a heavy wagon over rough roads and 
mountain trails. Of course, the railroad cars were not as 
comfortable as they are now. Many of the immigrants did 
not plan to become farmers, and stopped in the older towns 
along the way. Like the earlier settlers they were eager to 
make these cities rivals of the cities on the coast founded in 
colonial days. Their success is shown by the rapid increase 



SLAVERY IN THE BORDER STATES 



333 



in the size of Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and 
St. Louis between 1840 and i860. Chicago, for example, in 
1840 numbered 4,470 people. In i860 its population was 
112,172. 

Share of the South in the New Activities. — The southern 
states had almost no share in the new activities which busied 
the North and West. European immigrants seldom settled 
there. Factories were rarely established south of Maryland. 
The slaves were too ignorant, clumsy, and wasteful to use 
machinery or engage in the higher kinds of farming. 



:Mm^i:z 







Picking Cotton 

But there was another reason why few industries were estab- 
lished in the South. The increase in the demand for cotton, 
especially in England and in New England, convinced the 
southerners that their greatest profits would be found in 
cotton growing. The production increased from 1,976,000 
bales in 1840 to 4,675,000 twenty years later. As the price 
during the same time had increased, the gains of the planters 
were large. Like the sugar planters in the West Indies in 
the eighteenth century, they could not afford to build their 
machinery or weave their cloth or even raise their food. 
Everything of that kind they purchased in Great Britain, 
in Europe, or in the northern states. They bought, for 



334 DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW DOMAIN 

example, $5,000,000 worth of shoes a year in Massachusetts. 
The cottons which they required to clothe their slaves were 
obtained either in New England or old England. For this 
reason others besides the southerners were interested in the 
production of cotton. Others also feared any change in the 
system of labor which might endanger a profitable trade. 
No wonder the southerners said that " Cotton is king." 

Slavery in the Border States. — It would be a mistake to 
suppose that slavery existed on every farm in the South. 
Only about one family in five owned any slaves. The others 
supported themselves and their families by their own labor. 
Most of the slaves were in South Carolina, Georgia, and the 
Gulf states. Outside of the cotton belt, the greater part of 
the work was done by free laborers. The plantation system 
of using slave labor was profitable to the owners only so long 
as fertile land was cheap and plentiful. Wherever that 
gave out, slavery slowly broke down. Each year saw the 
abandonment of old cotton fields in the eastern states of 
the South and the establishment of new plantations in the 
Gulf states. This could not go on forever. 

Before the Revolution slavery was common in all colonies, 
North and South. It slowly declined in the North and dis- 
appeared. The change was brought about mainly because 
slaves had ceased to be profitable. Since 1783 it had also 
been slowly declining in Maryland, Virginia, and North 
Carolina. In that year negro slaves formed about one- 
half the population of Virginia; in i860 not more than 
one-third. In Maryland free negroes did about one-half of 
all the work. 

The question of labor troubled the planters greatly. All 
their money was invested in land and slaves. A good field 
hand cost from $1,500 to $1,800. The planters knew that the 
slaves were poor laborers. Many would have given up their 
slaves gladly if they could have found free laborers upon 
whom they could depend, but they did not believe that the 
slaves would work if freed. The abolition of slavery, they 
thought, meant the ruin of the South. 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 335 

Questions 

1. What unoccupied territory did the United States possess in 
1850? 

2. What railroads joined the East with the Mississippi Valley be- 
tween 1850 and i860? What was the aim of the builders of the first 
railroads ? Of the later ones ? How did the railroads affect the routes 
of trade ? The relations of East and West, North and South ? 

3. How did the railroads affect the growth of cities? Why did 
Chicago become a great city? Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit? 

4. What was the effect of the telegraph lines ? Who invented the 
telegraph ? How did he prove its usefulness ? 

5. Why was the change in postal rates important ? 

6. What were the "clipper" ships doing? Why did England 
build iron steamships instead of wooden "clippers"? 

7. What farm machinery was invented ? What effect had each 
on farm work? What tools were invented for other work? How did 
each affect the work of the shop or the home ? 

8. How were the ways of living changing in Europe? Why did 
immigrants come in increasing numbers ? Did they leave Europe 
for any other countries besides the United States ? 

9. Why did the Irish migrate to America in such numbers ? Why 
did the Germans ? What did each do in America ? Who settled in the 
new western territories ? What routes did they follow in their journey ? 

10. Why did the South fail to share in the new activities? Why 
did the southern people confine themselves so fully to cotton growing ? 
Did anybody else profit from slave labor in cotton growing ? 

11. Did the majority of the southern people own slaves? Where 
had slavery already ceased entirely ? Where had it partially broken 
down ? If the slaves were such poor laborers why were the southern 
people unwilling to free them ? 



Exercises 

1 . What states had been formed west of the Mississippi besides those 
mentioned in the chapter ? 

2. What was the length of time needed to cross the ocean in colonial 
days ? After the beginning of regular steamship lines ? 

Important Dates: 

1844. Morse builds the first telegraph line from Washington to 

Baltimore. 
1846. Elias Howe invents the sewing machine. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 

Slavery and the New Southwest. — The question of slav- 
ery was not a new political issue. It had been discussed 
when the Ordinance of 1787 was being prepared. It was 
brought up again after the purchase of Louisiana, and an 
arrangement concerning that territory was embodied in the 
Missouri Compromise. With the acquisition of New Mexico 
and California, and with the increasing flood of immigrants 
in the West, it excited men's minds as never before. 

Planters knew that the time would come when the old cot- 
ton lands would be worn out, and new lands would become 
necessary or the investment in slaves would be worthless. In 
1849 the people of California voted to exclude slavery, but 
the southern leaders thought that a bargain might be made 
by which California should be divided into two states, and 
slavery permitted in southern California. They had already 
given way as to Oregon, and Congress had prohibited the 
holding of slaves within its limits, but they had no idea of 
yielding in regard to the Southwest. Delegates from several 
southern states met at Nashville in order to express a united 
opposition to any plan of closing California or New Mexico 
to slavery. Some leaders talked freely of their intention to 
break up the Union rather than permit such a law. 

Fugitive Slaves. — Nor was this the only difference be- 
tween the states with slaves and those without. By the laws 
of the United States, if a slave ran away, his master could 
pursue him even into another state. It was the duty of 
United States officers to help the owner recapture his property. 
The law was an old one, having been made in 1793 when 
Washington was President. Slaves, especially in border 
states like Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, 

336 



NORTHERN OPPONENTS OF SLAVERY 



337 



frequently ran away. Their masters found it difficult to 
capture the fugitives because many people in the free states 
were ready to help them escape. The slave-holders accord- 
ingly demanded a more severe law by which those"who aided 
fugitive slaves might be punished. 

Northern Opponents of Slavery. — The northern aboli- 
tionists demanded that the system of slavery should be de- 
stroyed root and branch. William Lloyd Garrison was still 
the leader, and in twenty years of untiring agitation he had 
won a loyal, though not a very numerous, following. The 






fxrmgvM?££""'""' : - r z!'- rr " r 
■ 







The Old Indian Church, Pueblo of San Felipe, near 
Albuquerque, New Mexico 

It was this country that some Congressman wanted to open to slavery, and 
others wanted to close. The matter was settled by the Compromise of 1850 

majority of the northern people were opposed to inter- 
ference with slavery in the states. Workmen feared that if 
the negroes were freed, they would migrate to the northern 
states in such numbers as to reduce their wages. Business 
men were afraid that Garrison's plan would ruin the South 
and so shut off the supply of cheap cotton and destroy the 
market for northern goods. But many northern people, who 
would not go so far as the abolitionists, were anxious to stop 
the spread of slavery into the new territories. 

Those who wished to prevent the spread of slavery were 
«alled " Free-soilers." Many of them broke away from the 



338 



THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 



old political parties, and in the election of 1848 voted to make 
Van Buren President. Lewis Cass, the Democratic candi- 
date, proposed to leave the slavery question to the people 
of the territories. As they were often called squatters, this 
was called the doctrine of " Squatter Sovereignty." The 
Whigs took no stand on the slavery question, and nominated 
for President General Taylor, the " hero of Buena Vista." 
Taylor was elected, but the question was not forgotten. 

The Compromise of 
1850. — In 1850 the mod- 
erate leaders of the old 
parties united to bring 
about a settlement. 
Henry Clay, now a very 
old man, acted as their 
spokesman, and proposed 
a compromise. It was 
the third great compro- 
mise that he had lived to 
propose when the Union 
was in danger. For nearly 
a year Congress discussed 
the parts of Clay's plan. 
The ablest orators of America spoke. Calhoun, wasted 
with old age and so feeble that he could not stand, sat while 
another read his speech. A few days afterward the famous 
champion of the South died. Clay and Webster appealed 
to men of the North and South to lay aside their differences 
in order to save the Union. 

The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to satisfy both 
sides. (1) By forbiding the buying and selling of slaves in 
the District of Columbia, Clay hoped to please those in the 
North who wished to abolish slavery there. (2) By a new 
fugitive slave law, he hoped to pacify southern slave-holders. 
(3) By admitting California without slavery, he believed 
the North would be pleased. (4) By the provision that 
Congress should not interfere regarding slavery in Utah and 




Henry Clay 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 



339 




This Line, wfnch has been in successful operation since Jul/, 1857, Is ticketing PASSENGERS 
through to S*n Diego and San Francisco, and also to all intermediate RUtlQM. Passengers and 
Express matter forwarded In NEW COACH ES, drawn br si* mutes, over the entire length of our 
Line, excepting the Colorado Desert of one hundred miles, which we cross on mule-baclc. Pa*. 
stagers guaranteed in their tickets to ride in Coaches, excepting the one hundred miles abov* 
skated. 

IMssengers ticketed through, from NEW-ORLEANS, to the following points, via SAN 
AXTONIO: 



To Fort Clark Pare, $52. 

** Hudson ** 60. 

44 Port Lancaster, ** 70. 

44 Davis, *' 00. 

44 Quitman,, ** 100. 

44 Birchville, ** 100. 

44 San Elizarlo..-- ** 100. 

44 £1 Paso M 100. 



To Fort Bliss; Fore. $100. 

44 La Mesilla / " 105. 

u Port Fillmore, " 105. 

"Tucson, " 135. 

"Fort Yuma " 162. 

*' San Diego, * 4 190. 

** Los Angelos " 190. 

44 San Francisco, 44 200. 



New Mexico, 1 but should leave the inhabitants free to decide 
between free and slave labor, he wished to end the dispute 
about the new territory. 2 This last provision meant that 
slave-holders could take their slaves into the Southwest and 

have a share in de- OVERLAND TO THE PACIFIC. 

ciding the question 
whether slavery 
should be permitted 
or abolished. The 
statesmen who ar- The San Antonio and San Diego Mail-Line. 
ranged the Com- 
promise imagined 
that every great 
difference had been 
laid to rest. With- 
in a few months the 
old leaders, Clay 
and Webster, died. 
If the Compromise 
failed, new men and 
new measures must 
save the Union. 

The new men had 
already made them- 
selves heard. In the 
anti-slavery party 
they were William 
H. Seward of New 
York, Salmon P. 
Chase of Ohio, and 
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. On the pro-slavery side 
stood Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Jefferson Davis of 
Mississippi, and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. Seward 
had opposed the Compromise and in the course of the debate 

1 These included Nevada and Arizona. 

2 Texas was satisfied for a loss of territory given to New Mexico by a 
grant of $10,000,000. 



The Coa-Aes cf oar tine leiye seml.monthry from each end, on the ©th and liib of eaca 
month, .( 6 o'clock AM. 

An armed escort travels through the Indian country with each mall train, for the protection 
Cf the malls and passengers. 

Passengers are provided wiih provisions during the trip, except where the Coach stops at 
Public Houses along the Line, at which each Passenger will pay for his own meal. 

Each Passenger is allowed thirty pounds of personal baggage, exclusive of blankets and 

Passengers coming to San Antonio can lake the line of mait-steamers from New-Orleans 
five t.mea a week to Indianola. From the latter place there is a daily lino of four-horse mail, 
coaches direct to this place. 

On the Pacific side, the California Steam Navigation Company are running a first-class 
Steamer, semi-monthly, to and from Sao Francisco and San Diego. 

Extra, Baggage, uhtn carrttd, 40 cents per pound to El Paso, and Jl per pouod to San Diego. 

Passengers can obtain all necessary outfits In San Antonio. 

For further information, and for the purchase of tickets, apply at the office of C 0. 
W Afrit. 61 Camp Street, Nco Orleans, or at the Company's Office, in San Antonio. 
CJ. H. GIDDINGS.I„ 
B. E. DOYLE. I Vr "wielor*- 

Mode of Travel to the New Territory 

Reduced facsimile of an advertisement of the 

Overland Stage 



34© THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 

had appealed to a " higher law " than the Constitution, a 
law of liberty and justice. Had Taylor lived, perhaps the 
Compromise would not have been adopted, for Seward had 
great influence over him. 1 

The Failure of the Compromise. — The quiet which fol- 
lowed the Compromise was soon ended. The extremists on 
neither side were satisfied. The southerners believed that 
they had lost ground by the admission of California as a 
free state and by the prohibition of the slave-trade in the 
District of Columbia. The advantages that the Compromise 
offered in return proved to be worthless. Slavery could 
never pay in Utah and New Mexico. Physical geography 
had, as Webster said, forever settled the question. Negro 
slaves had neither the skill not the industry needed to make 
the deserts bear fruit. Nor was the new fugitive slave law 
of any great value. 

The Underground Railroad. — The Compromise had also 
made the northern abolitionists angrier than ever. They 
denounced particularly the law for the recovery of fugitive 
slaves. When some one said that the northern people ought 
not to work against slavery because the laws of the United 
States protected it, James Russell Lowell, the poet, exclaimed, 
"To be told that we ought not to agitate the question'of 
slavery, when it is that which is forever agitating us, is like 
telling a man with the fever and ague on him to stop shaking, 
and he will be cured." 

Such people secretly aided negroes to escape in spite of the 
law and the danger of punishment. They hid them in their 
houses in the day time and at night helped them on their 
way north to another hiding place. Such places were called 
"stations" of the "underground railroad." In this way 
thousands of slaves escaped. A master who followed the 
fugitives too far into the North was in danger of injury from 
angry mobs. Some men made it a business to hunt slaves 
for others, and stories were told of how they tried to use 

'President Taylor died in 1850 and was succeeded by the Vice- 
President, Millard Fillmore. 



KANSAS AND NEBRASKA BILL 341 

the new law to carry back into slavery negroes who were 
rightfully free. 

"Uncle Tom's Cabin." — In 1852 Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe wrote a story of the life of a slave. Some things 
that she said were true; many were net true. She failed 
to show that there were different kinds of negro slaves, and 
how most of those in the cotton states were only half-civilized 
and quite unlike the fairly well-trained house-servants of 
the border states. Her story was interesting and described 
some abuses that doubtless did occur under bad masters. 
Multitudes of men, women, and children in the North read 
the book and believed that all slavery was like that which 
she described, and that all southern white people were like 
her cruel masters, slave-drivers, and slave-traders. Such 
stories aroused against slavery multitudes whom Garrison 
had failed to reach. 

Stories were told at the South of how the abolitionists dis- 
tributed pamphlets or sent agents into the southern states 
to induce the slaves to run away. The conviction that they 
had been cheated in every compromise steadily gained ground 
among the southerners. Men said that it had been so 
in 1820 and it was so again now. Every attempt to treat 
with the North, they asserted, would have a similar result. 
Instead of the peace which Clay, Webster, and Calhoun had 
hoped for, deeper hatred spread over the land. 
/Kansas and Nebraska Bill. — The situation was made 
(worse by the rule which Congress adopted in opening for 
settlement the Indian country west of Missouri and Iowa. 
The southern leaders were anxious to add new slave territory. 1 
Some of them hoped to obtain Cuba from Spain by purchase, 
or even to take it by force. Douglas desired to satisfy them 
in order that he might gain their support as Democratic can- 

1 Iowa had been admitted without slaves in 1846. The admission 
of Arkansas in 1836 and Michigan in 1837, and of Florida, Texas, Iowa 
and Wisconsin in close succession during 1845, 1846, and 1848, had kept 
the number of states with slaves and without them equal. The 
admission of California put the free states ahead. 



342 



THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 



-^.-^oss 



didatc in the next presidential election. Accordingly, when 
Congress divided the upper part of the old Louisiana Purchase 
into Kansas and Nebraska territories, Douglas proposed that 
the inhabitants should decide at some future time whether 
they would permit slavery or not. This was the rule which 
had been applied to Utah and New Mexico. 

The bill meant that the new territories were opened to 

slavery if its sup- 
porters could oc- 
cupy them. This 
broke the agree- 
ment madeby the 
Missouri Com- 
promise that 
slavery should 
not be permitted 
in the Louisiana 
Purchase north 
of the southern 
boundary of Mis- 
souri. It was the 
turn of the anti- 
slavery men to 
feel that they 
were wronged. Furthermore, the law soon led to a struggle 
for Kansas, the forerunner of a greater war. 

War in Kansas, 1854 1857. — Frec-soilers and slave-holders 
were stirred to action by the offer of Kansas to the swiftest 
and strongest party. Settlers poured in from North and 
vSouth. They were colonists sent with the strange mission 
of battling with their neighbors for possession of a fair ter- 
ritory. 1 Covered wagons which had started for California 
gold-fields with " California or bust " painted on the sides 
put on " Kansas " instead. Adventurers and frontiersmen. 

1 The new territories included the great region which now makes up 
the states of Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, part of Colorado, 

and Wyoming. 




Tekritokiks 1 ■rdm WHICH Kansas and 
Nebraska were Erected 



RISE OF A NEW POLITICAL PARTY 



343 



eager for excitement, joined in the fray. Many Missourians 
crossed the boundary, some to settle with their slaves, others 
merely to help their party win the victory. These men the 
anti-slavery people called " border ruffians." The most 
determined leader of the anti-slavery settlers was John Brown, 
who with four sons, all well armed, fought against the colo- 
nists from the southern states. It was a war of ambushes and 
assaults on settlements. The Missourians succeeded in 




Scene on the Kansas Border 
Note the ferryboat propelled by poles, the stern-wheeled steamboat, and the wagons. 

founding Atchison and Leavenworth, near the Missouri 
River, while the Free-soilers took up the lands farther back, 
around Lawrence and Topeka. 

The Free-soilers soon outnumbered their opponents. The 
North had the advantage not only in the number ready to 
emigrate to Kansas, but also in money to aid them, and in 
railroads to carry them to the battleground. The conse- 
quence was that the Free-soilers eventually succeeded in 
organizing a government without slavery. Besides the 
Kansas and Nebraska Act had further widened the breach 
between the North and the South. 

Rise of a New Political Party, 1854-1860. — The Kansas 
and Nebraska Act led also to the formation of a new polit- 
ical party. The organization, under the name " Republi- 



344 THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 

can," started in the northwestern states during the summer 
of 1854, and spread rapidly over the entire North. The 
people of the Northwest had long regarded the lands on the 
Kansas, the Platte, and the Missouri rivers as destined for 
free farmers like themselves. They resented a measure 
which upset their plans. Besides, Douglas was interfering 
with another plan. The workingmen of the East had 
recently made a new demand. This was that the government 
should give every man in the United States who had no land 
and desired some a free homestead of 160 acres of western 
land. They expected that their plan would draw many 
laborers from the crowded cities and make wages higher for 
those left behind. Those who took up free lands would buy 
goods, tools, and machinery, and make times better in 
factories and mills and mines. This part of the plan pleased 
the merchants and manufacturers of the East and won their 
support. 

End of the Whig Party. — The new party grew faster 
because the voters in the old parties, especially the Whigs, 
had come to believe that their leaders were more interested 
in securing offices for themselves than in settling the serious 
problems of the nation. The Whig leaders kept saying 
that the question of slavery had been settled by the Com- 
promise of 1850. Multitudes of the members of the party 
thought differently and joined the Republicans. The Whig 
party melted away, much as the old Federalist party had 
disappeared. The Democratic party lost many, especially 
of the workingmen, for the same reason. 

The Dred Scott Affair. — In 1857 an event took place 
which stirred the Republicans fully as much as the Kansas 
and Nebraska Act. A negro, Dred Scott, his wife, and two 
daughters, claimed their freedom because their master had 
once taken them North into territory where slavery was un- 
lawful. The Supreme Court of the United States promptly 
decided that according to the law they were still slaves ; that 
settled the matter as far as these negroes were concerned. 
The Chief-Justice, Roger B. Taney, and several justices. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 345 

went further, thinking that the question of slavery could be 
settled if the Supreme Court expressed an opinion upon it. 
Accordingly, the majority of the court announced that the 
Missouri Compromise had been void from the first, because 
Congress had no power to forbid slavery in any territory. 
The decision meant that not even the inhabitants of a 
territory could do this, since slaves were property and per- 
mitted a man to carry his property into the territories ; that 
even if the Republicans could repeal the Kansas and 
Nebraska Act, they would be powerless to prevent the spread 
of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska. The Republican 
leaders thought Taney's decision was bad law. Instead of 
settling the question of slavery once for all, Taney, like 
DoUglas, had made the matter worse. 

Abraham Lincoln. — Abraham Lincoln had been practicing 
law in Illinois, riding the circuit of the scattered frontier 
courts as was the custom of the day, and voting the Whig 
ticket. He had been a member of Congress from 1847 to 
1849. He had been losing interest in politics, but the Kansas 
and Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott opinion aroused him. 

In 1858 an Illinois Republican convention nominated him 
for the Senate against Douglas, who was still the great Demo- 
cratic leader. In his speech accepting the nomination Lin- 
coln declared courageously, " A house divided against itself 
cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure per- 
manently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall ; but I 
do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one 
thing or all the other." He plainly showed that he wished 
to stop the progress of slavery in the territories, and even 
hinted that he expected that the opponents of slavery would 
finally destroy it. 

Lincoln challenged Douglas to debate the question before 
the citizens of Illinois. The two men presented a striking 
contrast. Douglas was considered a great orator and a 
shrewd debater. As he was short he was commonly called 
the " Little Giant." Lincoln was tall and awkward, but he 



34^ 



THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 



already had the reputation of uttering sayings as wise as 
those of " Poor Richard." His way of reasoning was per- 
fectly clear and straightforward. Before the debates were 
ended he had compelled Douglas to explain that though Con- 
gress, according to the Dred Scott decision, might not forbid 
slavery in the territories, the people of the territories could 
make slave-holding impossible by passing laws hostile to it. 
This statement made the southerners angry at Douglas. 

Lincoln lost the election, but 
he had won a hearing before 
the whole country and was 
regarded as one of the leaders 
of the Republican party. 

The young party grew 
rapidly. In 1856 a majority 
of the northern states voted 
for the Republican candidate 
for President, but the Demo- 
crats in the North and the 
South elected their candidate, 
James Buchanan of Pennsyl- 
vania. After the Dred Scott 
affair, the Republicans won 
other northern states, until by 1859 they had more members 
than the Democrats in the House of Representatives. 

John Brown's Raid, 1859. — The southern people were 
alarmed by the growth of a northern political party. They 
knew that the Republican leaders said that their chief object 
was to abolish slavery in the territories, but no southerner 
believed that the Republicans would be satisfied to stop 
there. The abolitionists among them were resolved to de- 
stroy the system everywhere. Who could tell when they 
would control the whole party? 

An event in the fall of 1859 seemed to give good ground 
for more serious alarm. One quiet night in October, John 
Brown, with 18 followers fully armed, seized the little Vir- 
ginia village of Harper's Ferry with its United States gun 




James Buchanan 



JOHN BROWN'S RAID 



347 




factory and store of arms. It was the first act in a strange 
plan. Brown intended to arouse the slaves in Virginia, put 
arms in their hands, and by their aid provide a mountain 
stronghold for all slaves. There would be a great war 
against slavery carried into the heart of the South, and 
waged mainly by the negroes themselves. The abolitionists 
were too mild for him. " Those men," he said, " are all talk ; 
what is needed is action — action ! " He seems to have 
thought that northern 
people would aid him 
with money and arms in 
a race war in the southern 
mountains, as they had 
in Kansas. 

Nothing turned out 
as he hoped. The slaves 
in the neighborhood of 
Harper's Ferry did not 
rise. His men raided 
several plantations and 
told the slaves that they were free, but the negroes refused 
to fight. Within a few hours Brown was captured at 
Harper's Ferry by a military force under command of 
Colonel Robert E. Lee of the Regular Army. Brown and 
several of his men were tried and hanged for murder and 
treason. Such was the tragic ending of a plan over which 
Brown had brooded for twenty years, until he believed 
that God had called him to free the slaves. 

The people of the South were horror-stricken at Brown's 
raid. He had attempted to bring about what they had 
always most dreaded — an armed uprising of the slaves. 
They could not tell how many northern people supported the 
plan. They heard that some abolitionists rejoiced in Brown's 
deed and proclaimed him a martyr. Those at the South who 
disliked the slave system, and there were many such, as well 
as those who approved it, denounced the North. It was im- 
possible to convince them that Brown's deed was his own, "and 



Harper's Ferry in 1859 



348 THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 

that the great majority of the northern people thought it 
wrong. Each one who had tried to settle the slavery ques- 
tion, Clay, Douglas, Taney, and Brown, only made the matter 
worse. 

Questions 

i What important political question divided the people of the 
United States in 1848? What step did California take? What did 
southern leaders want to do before admitting California into the 
Union ? What had Congress done in the case of Oregon ? 

2. What other questions divided the states with slaves and those 
without ? What change in the fugitive slave law did the slave-holders 
want ? 

3. What did the abolitionists seek to do? Why did the majority 
of northern people oppose the plan of the abolitionists? What were 
many northern people anxious to do regarding slavery ? What name 
was given to this party ? What position did the two great political 
parties take on the subject in the election of 1848? 

4. What leaders supported Clay's Compromise? How did Clay 
try to satisfy both sides ? What method did he use to end the dispute 
about slavery in the new territory? 

5. What new leaders took the places of the older men ? Why were 
the southerners soon dissatisfied with the Compromise? How did the 
northern abolitionists help fugitive slaves? What effect did their 
methods have on the South ? 

6. Describe Mrs. Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. What 
influence did it have? What did the South believe about the aboli- 
tionists? What did it think about compromises with the North? 

7 What rule did Douglas propose for the Kansas and Nebraska 
territories? Why did he make this proposal? Where else had it been 
adopted? What effect did it have on the Missouri Compromise? 
Whom did it displease? 

8. Why did Douglas's Kansas and Nebraska Act bring on a war 
in Kansas? Who were the fighters? Why did the Free-soilers win? 
What effect had the Kansas and Nebraska Act on the difference between 
the Nortli and the South? 

9. What new political party was formed in the North? Why did 
the people < >f the northwestern states favor it ? The workingmen of the 
East ? The merchants and manufacturers ? Why did the Whig party 
lose its followers? 

10. What did the Supreme Court say in the Dred Scott decision 
regarding the power of Congress ? Why did the Republicans think it 
bad law ? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 349 

11. Whom did the Dred Scott decision arouse? What did he say 
regarding slavery in his debates with the "Little Giant"? What did 
Douglas say which made the southern Democrats angry with him ? 

12. How did John Brown try to end slavery? What did the 
southern people think of the raid ? Whom did they blame ? 

Exercises 

1. Review Clay's three great compromises proposed to save the 
Union. See pages 276, 292, 338. 

2. Review the story of the Federalist party. 

3 Prepare a summary of this chapter under the headings which 
follow : 

(a) 1850. Clay's attempt to settle the slave question. 
(6) 1854. The attempt of Douglas to end the difference over 
slavery in the territories. 

(c) 1857. The attempt of Roger B. Taney and the majority of 

the Supreme Court to settle the difference over 
slavery in the territories. 

(d) 1859. The attempt of John Brown to destroy the entire 

slave system. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
A DIVIDED NATION 

Election of Lincoln. — The election of i860 was intensely 
exciting. Southern leaders, like Senator Jefferson Davis, 
thought that the choice of a Republican President would 
bring ruin upon the South. They were prepared to break 
up the Union unless the government would support the Dred 
Scott decision, that is, protect slave property in the terri- 
tories, whether the inhabitants of them wished it or not. 
When the Democratic convention met in April, they at- 
tempted to force the delegates to embody such a demand 
in the party platform or program. A majority of the dele- 
gates were Douglas men and refused. Thereupon the dele- 
gates of the cotton states withdrew. The others, meeting 
later in the year, nominated Stephen A. Douglas as Presi- 
dent, while the " bolters " nominated John C. Breckenridge 
of Kentucky, who at the time was Vice-President. 

The split in the Democratic party led to the success of the 
Republican party, the very thing that the southern leaders 
declared would be ruinous. The Republican convention 
met in Chicago in May. Seward seemed at first to be the 
favorite candidate, but on the third ballot Abraham Lincoln 
was nominated as President. Earlier in the year Lincoln 
had strengthened his reputation by a speech in New York, in 
the course of which he denied that the party was in any 
way responsible for the John Brown raid. He showed that 
while the Republicans were pledged to resist the spread of 
slavery into the territories, they did not intend to interfere 
with it in the southern states. Lincoln was commonly con- 
sidered as more cautious than Seward, and he was counted 
upon to carry Illinois and one or two other doubtful states. 

In the election Lincoln carried all the northern states ex- 

350 







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Abraham Lincoln 
From a photograph taken in i860 



352 



A DIVIDKD NATION 



cept New Jersey, whose electoral vote was divided between 
Lincoln and Douglas. Lincoln's electoral vote was 180, while 
his opponents received 123. Douglas and Breckenridge to- 
gether received a much larger popular vote. It was clear, 
therefore, that the Democrats would have won if the delegates 
of the cotton states had not insisted upon their program. 
South Carolina's Declaration of Independence. — Imme- 
diately after the election South Carolina decided to withdraw 

from the Union. The 
legislature called a con- 
vention which, on De- 
cember 20, repealed the 
ratification of the Consti- 
tution passed in 1788, and 
declared the state a " free 
and independent nation." 
As the leaders of the 
cotton states had agreed 
to stand together, Mis- 
sissippi, Florida, Alabama, 
Georgia, Louisiana, and 
Texas soon followed the ex- 
ample of South Carolina. 




Charleston in War Time 

'Through streets still echoing with trade." 



A New Republic, 1861. — In February, 1861, a convention 
of delegates held at Montgomery, Alabama, took the neces- 
sary steps to form a new republic, calling it the Confederate 
States of America. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was 
chosen President, and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia 
Vice-President. The constitution of the Confederate States 
repeated the old Constitution almost word for word. The 
southern leaders were convinced that the old Constitution, 
if properly enforced, would make their property in slaves as 
safe as any other kind of property. In the new constitution, 
however, they took pains to make this so clear that there 
could be no dispute. 

The Southern People and the Old Union. — Most of the 
southern people wished to remain in the Union under which 



THE SOUTHERN PEOPLE AND THE OLD UNION 353 



they and their fellow-Americans had grown to be a great 
nation. The stories of heroic deeds, of Bunker Hill and 
Yorktown, of leaders like Washington and Jackson, of the 
pioneers who had carried the flag from territory to territory, 
were possessions of both North and South. For thirty 
years John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis had worked 
as earnestly as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster to find a 
way to preserve the Union. 
But such men as Davis now 
believed separation better. 

What would Buchanan do? 
— Buchanan's term as Presi- 
dent did not close until three 
months after South Carolina 
had seceded, and one month 
after the convention at Mont- 
gomery had begun the organiza- 
tion of the Confederate States. 
The leaders of the new republic 
were anxious about his attitude 
toward them. They remem- 
bered that when South Carolina 
prepared to resist a national law President Jackson took 
such vigorous steps to compel obedience that opposition 
was dangerous. Would Buchanan take similar measures? 

They had not long to wait. In a message to Congress 
Buchanan said that a state had no right to withdraw from 
the Union, but neither the President nor Congress had any 
power to compel the cotton states to return to the Union 
against their will. Such words encouraged the leaders of 
the Confederate States. Southern senators, representatives, 
judges, and post-masters gave up their places under the 
United States government and took service under the new 
republic. 

President Davis and his associates had no doubts about 
the justice of their cause. Few of them had any idea that 
separation would bring on war. South Carolina sent a com- 




Jefferson Davis 



354 



A DIVIDKI) NATION 



mission to Washington to arrange with the United States a 
division of the national debt and a settlement regarding the 
national property within the state. 

Attempts to compromise again. — A compromise had 
saved the Union so many times that men thought the old 
method would serve again, but no plan was found upon 
which they could agree. Lincoln was consulted by the 

Republicans in Congress . He 
offered to support an amend- 
ment to the Constitution 
making it clear that Congress 
had no power to interfere with 
slavery in any southern state. 
The southern Congressmen 
insist that the provision be 
added that Congress had no 
power to exclude slavery from 
the territories of the United 
St ates. To this point Lincoln 
would not agree. Since the 
Kansas and Nebraska Act, 
slavery in the territories was 
i Ik one thing that the Republicans had determined should 
cease. 

Would it be War or Peace? — The question in every man's 
mind throughout the winter of e86i was whether the with- 
drawal of seven cotton states meant war or peaceable dis- 
union. Some dreaded eivil war more than dividing the 
country. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, 
one of the Republican leaders in the North, urged peaceable 
separation. " If the cotton states," he wrote, " shall become 
satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than 
in it, we insist on letting them go in peace." No one knows 
how many agreed with him. Among those who shared this 
opinion were the Friends or Quakers. Such men Loved 

the Union, but did not wish to shed bl 1 to keep the South 

in it. They trusted that if treated generously the South 




■WHP 



Horace Greeley 



WOULD IT BE WAR OR PEACE? 355 

would return of its own free will. The Garrison aboli- 
tionists rejoiced over the withdrawal of the cotton states as 
the easiest way to purge the Union of slavery. It was com- 
monly said that Senator Seward was working for a com- 
promise by which the plan of keeping the territories wholly 
for free settlers should be given up. The majority of the 
Republicans looked upon the secession of the cotton states 
as treason, and the men who led it as traitors. A compromise 
on the question of the territories was no longer to be con- 
sidered. 

The northern people had gradually gained a strong national 
feeling, while the southerners were first of all loyal to their 
states. The immigrant had come to seek a home and an 
opportunity not in any particular state but in the United 
States. To him the separate states seemed simple subdivi- 
sions of the country. The multiplication of railroads, the 
close relations of trade, the settlement of the West by the 
children of eastern families, all combined to make Webster's 
cry, " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insep- 
arable," the watchword of the North. Lincoln expressed 
the same feeling by his declaration in his inaugural address 
that " the union of these states is perpetual." Would the 
northern people support such a view by war ? 

What shall be done with Fort Sumter ? — The Confederate 
States had as yet met with no obstacles as an independ- 
ent republic. Buchanan had finished his term and Lincoln 
had become President. The Confederate States had taken 
possession of national custom-houses, forts, and military 
supplies, worth together about $30,000,000, located within 
their limits. Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor, 
held out almost alone among the old forts. Its commander, 
Major Robert Anderson of Kentucky, had an officer's scruples 
against abandoning a post of duty. But he needed pro- 
visions and reinforcements. In January Buchanan had sent 
the Star of the West, with 200 men, arms, ammunition, and 
other supplies, but it was fired upon in Charleston harbor 
and compelled to return to New York. 



356 



A DIVIDED NATION 



What to do about Fort Sumter was Lincoln's first hard 
problem as President. He assured the North and the South 
that the government would not use force unless force was 
used against it. Jefferson Davis said to his supporters that 
Sumter would be abandoned without war. Five weeks 
passed after Lincoln's inauguration, and still there was peace. 
Neither side was willing to bear the blame for starting 
a great civil war. Meanwhile Confederate commissioners 
had been sent to Washington to attempt a peaceful settle- 




ORHIS ISLANtf" 



Map of Forts in Charleston Harbor 

ment. They were not officially received. On April 8 
President Lincoln notified the governor of South Carolina 
that he intended to supply the fort with provisions. At the 
same time he explained that he would not reenforce the 
garrison or add to the stock of ammunition unless the state 
troops resisted. 

Fall of Fort Sumter. — On Saturday morning, April 13, 
1 86 1, the northern newspapers announced that Charleston 
troops were bombarding Fort Sumter. The Confederate 
government at Montgomery had finally concluded to attack 
the fort before it could be relieved. The bombardment began 
early on Friday, April 12, and lasted two days. Anderson 
and his men held out until the fort was in ruins and its wooden 
buildings were on fire. Then they surrendered. They were 
allowed to salute their flag and to depart for the North 
aboard Federal ships which were waiting off the harbor. 



THE CALL TO ARMS 



357 



The Call to Arms. — In the North the attack on Fort 
Sumter was the signal which all had dreaded. If the Union 
were not to be dissolved, the government must be upheld. 
This was the sentiment of many northern Democrats, as 
well as of the Republicans. Buchanan and Douglas l let 
it be known that they would aid in enforcing the laws and in 
recovering the property of the United States. 

Monday morning, April 15, Lincoln asked the governors 
of the states to supply the United States with 75,000 soldiers. 
It was a call to arms. The response, except from the border 







Fort Sumter after the Bombardment 

states, went beyond the hopes of the North. The first 
volunteers were chiefly men in militia regiments already 
organized. The Sixth Massachusetts, composed of citizens 
of Concord, Lexington, and the surrounding towns, left for 
Washington within 48 hours. 

The Southern Answer. — The response in the Confederate 
States to the call of Davis for troops was no less prompt and 
generous. A southern leader said, " The anxiety among our 
citizens is not as to who shall go to the wars, but who shall 
stay at home." 

The Middle States of the South. — At first only the 
cotton states withdrew from the United States. A middle 
group of southern states — Virginia, North Carolina, Ten- 
nessee, and Arkansas — held aloof, doubtful what course 

1 Stephen A. Douglas, only 48 years of age, died a few weeks later, 
but to the last used his influence to unit? the North. 



35§ 



A DIVIDED NATION 



to take. In them slavery was slowly disappearing. They 
opposed a war merely for its extension to the territories. 
Virginia was proud of the state's share in the nation's history, 
and hoped for some way to compromise. But as soon as 
these states saw that Lincoln intended to use force to pre- 
serve the Union they, too, joined the Confederacy. They 
did not believe the general government had power to compel 
a state to stay in the Union against its will. Besides, their 
closest bonds were with their southern neighbors. 




The White Hoise oi- the Confederacy 

Residence of President Jefferson Davis at Richmond 

The Border States. — On the border between North and 
South were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. 
In them slavery had so far declined that the majority of the 
people had little interest in defending it. There the business 
men were more closely connected with the North. In each of 
these states, however, were many who wanted to follow the 
example of the middle group. In Kentucky they were able 
to keep their government from taking sides for several 
months, but when a Confederate army invaded the state 
the people went over whole-heartedly to the support of the 
Union. Kentucky did not like being forced to support the 
Confederacy any more than some of the others did being 
forced to support the Union. The governor of Missouri re- 



THE BORDER STATES 359 

fused to send troops, but the timely energy of the German 
citizens of St Louis, under the leadership of Francis P. Blair, 
Jr. and Captain Lyon, saved the state for the Union. 
Maryland also was doubtful for a time, and the Sixth 
Massachusetts regiment was attacked by a mob as it was 
marching through Baltimore. The western counties of Vir- 
ginia seceded from Virginia and formed a new state, West 
Virginia, which was later admitted into the Union. The 
people of east Tennessee were equally opposed to secession, 
but did not carry their opposition so far. The border states 
remained in the Union partly because of Lincoln's tact and 
generosity in dealing with them. 

Eleven states in all joined in the effort to form a southern 
nation. Twenty-two states remained loyal to the old govern- 
ment. Richmond was chosen as the permanent capital of the 
Confederacy. The loss of Virginia was an especially serious 
one to the United States. Its nearness to Washington 
placed the capital in great danger. Several distinguished 
Virginia soldiers, among them Robert E. Lee, thought their 
duty was with their state and left the United States army to 
serve the South. 

Questions 

1. Why did the southern Democrats divide their party ? Whom did 
the two parts nominate as candidates for President? Why did the 
Republicans nominate Lincoln? Why was Lincoln successful in the 
election of i860? What was the program or demand of the southern 
leaders ? 

2. What did South Carolina do after the election of Lincoln ? What 
states followed its example ? Whom did the Confederate States choose 
as President and Vice-President ? What kind of a constitution did they 
adopt ? 

3. What states wavered between the Union and the new republic? 
Which way did each incline ? 

4. What did Buchanan think of the withdrawal of the cotton states ? 
What was the effect of his attitude? 

5. What concession was Lincoln willing to make to prevent war 
between the northern and southern states? What did the leaders 
of the cotton states demand ? What plan did some leaders like Horace 
Greeley advocate? Others like Seward? 



3 6 ° 



A DIVIDED NATION 



6. Why were the northern people more attached to the Union than 
the southern ? 

7. What was the first obstacle that the Confederate States met ? 
Why did Lincoln hesitate to send supplies and re-enforcements to Fort 
Sumter? Why did the Confederate government finally attack 1" rl 
Sumter? What was the result? 

8. What was the result of the call for troops in the northern states? 
In the southern states ? 

9. What states joined in the attempt to form a new republic in the 
South? Which ones were divided in sentiment and action? Why did 
distinguished Virginians like Robert E. Lee leave the army of the 
United States to aid the Confederate cause ? 

Exercises 

1. How long was it after South Carolina seceded before war began 
by the attack on Fort Sumter? 

2. Wherever possible gather stories of the topics mentioned in this 
chapter from persons who were living when the events happened. 

Important Dates : 

April 14, 1861. Fort Sumter captured by the troops of the Con- 
federate States, beginning the Civil War. 




Confederate Battle 
Flag 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 

Resources of the North and the South. — The Southern 
leaders supposed that " cotton was king," but war proved 
that the kingdom of corn, wheat, coal, and iron was stronger. 
The planters were so occupied in raising cotton, and to some 
extent rice and sugar, that they did not build factories, 
open coal mines, and dig iron ore. Their system of railroads 
was incomplete and poorly equipped. English or northern 
ships carried their cotton to the market. Most of the steam- 
boat lines which ran on western rivers belonged to north- 
ern companies. The food of the whole country was raised 
mainly on northern and western fields. 

In war such things count. Armies must be fed, supplies 
must be carried rapidly, the wear and tear of campaigning 
must be met by new equipment. A people whose chief 
occupation is a particular kind of agriculture is at a great 
disadvantage in struggling with a people provided with a 
well-developed system of manufactures and a boundless food 
supply. The South was obliged to look to Europe for the 
military supplies that it could not produce and to pay for 
them with its cotton. It could not, however, send cotton 
abroad unless its ports were kept open. As the South had 
neither war-ships nor sufficient shipyards to build them, its 
trade with England and Europe was sure to be cut off sooner 
or later by a blockade. 

The South was also at a disadvantage in numbers. The 
white population of the states in the Confederacy was 
5,400,000, while the total population of the Union, including 
the border states, was 22,000,000. The disadvantage of 
the South in numbers, as compared with the North, was 
partially overcome by the employment of slaves not only in 

361 



362 



THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 



raising food but also as teamsters and laborers in the army. 
Furthermore, many citizens of the border states fought in 
the southern armies. 

Geography of the War. — The leaders of both North and 
South sought to grasp any advantage which their own situa- 
tion or that of their enemies offered. As the navy remained 
loyal to the national government, the North possessed the 
sea power. It could choose points of attack on the Atlantic 












Railroads and Navigable Waterways of the South, 1861 

coast or on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Southern sea- 
ports soon felt the weight of war, while no northern port 
was threatened. 

The great Appalachian barrier served to divide the war 
into two distinct fields of operation, that of Virginia and 
that of the Mississippi Valley. The barrier was pierced by 
northern railroads running from New York, Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore westward, and by southern railroads from 
Richmond to Knoxville and Chattanooga, and from Charles- 
ton to Memphis. 

Two valleys played an important part — the Shenandoah 
Valley and the Great Appalachian Valley of eastern Tennes- 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE WAR 363 

see. The Shenandoah has been compared to a gun trained 
on Washington, through which troops might be discharged if 
the national armies moved southward toward Richmond. 
The Blue Ridge on the eastern side of the Shenandoah, with 
its many " gaps," served also as a screen behind which an 
army might move north or south, bursting through upon 
some weak point of the Union line. The valley could not 
be used equally well by the national armies, for it led away 
from Richmond toward the southwest. Through the Appa- 
lachian Valley, in like manner, a southern army could be 
thrown into Kentucky if the national armies advanced along 
the line of the Mississippi River. 




Scene in the Shenandoah Valley 



Except for the danger from the Shenandoah, the geography 
of Virginia seemed to favor the North. Chesapeake Bay and 
the James River offered an easy approach to Richmond. A 
direct march overland from Washington to Richmond was 
hampered by rivers running from the Piedmont hills to the 
coast, each furnishing a natural line of defense. 

West of the Appalachians the advantage of position lay also 
with the North. The Mississippi was a great highway lead- 
ing either north or south, but the North could build armed 
steamboats faster than the South. At only a few points in 
its course, such as Columbus in Kentucky, and Vicksburg 
in Mississippi, does the river touch high plateaus or bluffs 
which can be fortified. It is unlike a river flowing between 
hilly shores which offer a multitude of places for defense. 
Two other rivers, the Cumberland and the Tennessee, which 



364 



THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 



I 






s 



empty into the Ohio near where it joins the Mississippi, are 
navigable, the first to a point many miles above Nashville, 
the other as far as northern Alabama. In Tennessee, near 
the Kentucky border, they are only twelve miles apart. 

Railroads were almost as important as rivers. It is true 
that raiders could tear up tracks and burn bridges, but trained 
workmen could soon replace both. Railroad junctions were 

especially important. 
Manassas Junction was 
such a place, where the 
railroad from Washing- 
ton to Lynchburg was 
j< lined by a railroad from 
the Shenandoah Valley 
through Manassas Gap. 
Bowling Green, in Ken- 
tucky, was another, sit- 
uated near the junction 
of the Louisville and 
Nashville and the Mem- 
phis and Ohio railroads. 
Still another was Cor- 
inth, Mississippi, where 
the Memphis and Char- 
leston Railroad, the only 
through line from the lower Mississippi to the coast, crossed 
a railroad from Mobile. Chattanooga, in southeastern 
Tennessee, was important because of river, mountain 
pass, and railroad, for there the Tennessee River breaks 
through the Cumberland Plateau, the eastern wall of the 
Appalachian barrier. There also important railroads met, 
connecting the cities on the Mississippi with Charleston and 
Richmond. 

Soldiers North and South. — Both North and South 
had trained officers to command at least a part of their 
armies. These men were graduates at West Point, had 
been in the regular army, and some of them had fought in 




Scene Near the Gateway to the North 
The Shenandoah River near Harper's Ferry 



BLOCKADE OF THE SOUTH 



365 



the Mexican War. The regular army numbered only 16,000 
men. The chief reliance was upon volunteers. The South- 
erners, more accustomed to outdoor life, and the planters to 
leadership, were readily transformed into soldiers. The 
Northern volunteers came fresh from farms, factories, shops, 
and desks. Many of them were led into battle before they 
had been taught how to handle a gun. Others, both in the 
North and South, had 
received valuable training 
in militia regiments and 
in military schools. 

As the South stood on 
the defensive, simply in- 
sisting on its right to se- 
cede and form a separate 
nation, the Southern sol- 
dier was fighting on his 
own ground and in a cli- 
mate to which he was 
accustomed. The North, 
declaring that the Union 
should be preserved, had 
the task of occupying the 
southern states and com- 




A Sailing Frigate of the Old Navy 

The Sabine; one of the first ships in the 
line of blockade 



pelling their return to the Union. Its soldiers fought, in a 
sense, in a foreign country. Vast regions of the South were 
still a wilderness, with few roads and bridges. If the Northern 
armies succeeded in forcing their way far into the South, 
they had to guard a hundred places along their line of advance, 
or be cut off from their sources of supply. 

Blockade of the South. — On April 19, five days after the 
fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issued a proclamation 
declaring the ports of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in 
a state of blockade. A week later the other Confederate 
ports were included. At first it was a " paper " blockade, 
that is, the navy was not large enough to station ships before 
each port in order to carry out the proclamation. 



366 



THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 



The blockade proved a huge undertaking. The coast of 
the Confederacy stretched from the Potomac to the Rio 
Grande, and contained 200 harbors. Every kind of vessel, 
even old ferryboats, had to be pressed into use as men-of-war. 
The lines of blockade were gradually drawn closer until 
within a year trade from southern ports almost entirely 
ceased. Only one-fiftieth as much cotton 
was exported in 1862 as in i860. 

The southern people made efforts to out- 
wit the " sea-dogs " watching their coast. 
Shipbuilders in the South, the West Indies, 
and in Great Britain constructed swift 
blockade runners, with sides so low that 
at a little distance in the night they were 
almost invisible. These vessels often suc- 
ceeded in escaping from unfrequented 
harbors, with cargoes of cotton, bound for 
the Bermudas and the Bahamas. They 
brought back supplies for the army or 
f< >? fcl a 1 goods which the South could not produce. 
Many stories are still told in the South 
about the bravery and success of the 
caj > tains of the blockade runners. When a 
ship was able to bring a cargo from Europe the profits were 
worth the trouble. At one time cotton was S2.50 a pound in 
Liverpool, though it was only four or five cents a pound in 
Charleston. 

The Confederacy seeks Allies. — It was so important for 
the South to trade with England and Europe that its leaders 
sought help abroad to break the blockade. They needed 
money and ships. They were in much the same situation 
as the colonies, which obtained supplies, an army, and a 
navy from Europe during the Revolution. 

The governing classes of England and France sympathized 
with the South. They were eager to profit by the free trade 
which the Confederacy offered. There was no danger that 
the Southerners, like the Northerners, would become their 




coxfederate sol 
dier in Uniform 



THE CONFEDERACY SEEKS ALLIES 



367 



rivals in manufacturing. Many shrewd English and French 
statesmen were delighted that the great republic seemed fall- 
ing into pieces. The workingmen of England, however, and 
most of the middle class, believed that the North was fight- 
ing the battle of free labor. 

On account of the scarcity of cotton, English merchants 
and manufacturers wished the war to end speedily. Many 
cotton mills were closed and their em- 
ployees dismissed. It is doubtful whether 
even the Southerners suffered as much 
as the employees of the English cotton 
factories. Many were kept from starva- 
tion only by food which the British gov- 
ernment furnished. 

England and the South. — Before the 
year 1861 was ended, England was nearly 
drawn into the struggle. The Confed- 
erate government sent two commissioners, 
Mason and Slidell, to persuade the Eng- 
lish and the French to acknowledge that 
the Confederacy was an independent 
nation. The English government had 
already announced that it would treat 
the Southerners as " belligerents," that 
is, as persons having a right to carry 
on war, rather than as rebels against the United States. 
This action made many people in the North very angry. 
Had England formally acknowledged the independence of 
the South the United States would have taken the act 
as a declaration of war. The excitement was increased when 
news came that the commander of a Union war-ship had 
stopped the British steamer Trent, on which Mason and Sli- 
dell were traveling, and had arrested them. The act caused 
much rejoicing in the North, but President Lincoln at once 
saw that it was contrary to the principles that the United 
States had defended in 181 2. He felt that the United States 
could not deny the rights of neutrals at one time and make 




Union Soldier in 
Uniform 




368 THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 

use of them at another. Consequently he ordered the release 
of the commissioners. The English government had already 
despatched troops to Canada, and but for the influence of 
Queen Victoria would have tried to take advantage of the 
blunder to humiliate the United States. 

No sooner had this question been settled, than the United 
States learned that English ship-builders were constructing 
war vessels for the South. Two ships, the Florida and the 

Alabama, sailed from Eng- 
land in 1 86 2 to fight for 
the Confederate cause. 
They were not strong 
enough to attack northern 
cities or to break the block- 
ade of southern ports. 

The CruTseT" Alabama " ThQ y therefore ranged the 

seas, destroying Union 
merchant vessels until they were themselves captured. In 
permitting these vessels to sail the English government was in 
the wrong, and was later compelled to pay heavy damages. 

Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. — With soldiers untrained 
no great battles could occur in the first months of the war. 
There was fighting in Missouri between the Unionists and 
Secessionists, and the Unionists succeeded in holding the 
state. In Kentucky ballots rather than bullets decided 
whether the state should secede. When the votes were 
counted it was found that a large majority were Union men. 
In the western counties of Virginia, Northern troops drove 
out a small army sent by the governor of the state. The 
Northern leader was George B. McClcllan, a West Pointer 
who had fought in the Mexican War. 

It was near Washington that the first important battle 
took place. The Confederate General Beauregard was in 
command of a small army at Manassas Junction, while Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston, with a few thousand more troops, 
was at Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley, not far from 
the railroad running through Manassas Gap to Manassas 



BATTLE OF BULL RUN 



3 6 9 



Junction. The aged General Scott, who was still at the head 
of the United States army, and his second in command, Gen- 
eral Irwin McDowell, forced by the impatience of the North, 




Map of Campaigns in Virginia 

planned an attack on Beauregard. Part of the plan was that 
a body of Federal troops in the Shenandoah Valley should 
keep Johnston busy. 

It soon appeared that railroads and telegraphs were as 
important in war as in commerce. Johnston escaped from his 
enemy in the Shenandoah and began sending reenf orcements 



37© THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 

over the Manassas Gap Railroad to Beauregard. Scott, 
hearing the news from the Shenandoah, telegraphed Mc- 
Dowell that he had two armies to fight rather than one. 

McDowell persisted in making the attack. His plan of 
battle was excellent, and everything went well until about 
three o'clock in the afternoon. By that time the Union 
and the Confederate troops wire equally exhausted. Only 
one part of the Confederate line, commanded by General 
Thomas J. Jackson, stood firm. A brother officer exclaimed, 
" See Jackson, he stands like a stone wall.*' Henceforth 
Jackson bore the name of " Stonewall." Just then another 
division of Johnston's men appeared, brought by the rail- 
road. They were fresh and were skillfully led. The exhausted 
Union soldiers wavered, broke, and fled. In the terrible 
panic which followed, many never stopped until they reached 
the neighborhood of Washington, thirty miles distant. 

Lessons of the Battle. - The North and South learned 
valuable lessons from the battle. The northern people had 
counted upon a speedy victory. Such a defeat was a terrible 
blow, but after the first gloom passed off, the people set 
about preparing for a more serious struggle than they had 
expected. Some of the southern soldiers thought that the 
war was ended and started for home. Their army was almost 
as disorganized by victory as the northern army was by 
defeat. 

The officers on both sides realized that time was needed 
to transform the brave and self-sacrificing volunteers into 
real soldiers, capable of manoeuvering on the battlefield 
as well as on the parade ground. McClellan, an exeellanl 
organizer and drill-master, took charge of the northern 
army, now called the Army of the Potomac, while Johnston 
commanded the southern or Army of Northern Virginia. 
Robert L. Lee acted as President I )avis's chief -of -staff. Gen- 
eral Scott, weakened by age, soon withdrew, so that the Army 
of the Potomac was directed by McClellan alone. 

Use of Sea Power. — The North used its rapidly con- 
structed navy not only to establish a blockade before South- 



USE OF SEA POWER 



371 



ern ports, but also to occupy important points along the 
coast of the Confederacy. In August, 1861, Fort Hatteras on 
the North Carolina shore was captured, and in November 
Port Royal, one of the best harbors on the coast, only 50 miles 
from Charleston, South Carolina. A little later the North 
gained a foothold at the mouth of the Savannah River. 




The Custodians of the Coast 

Ships of the Union Navy, stationed at the entrance to every important harbor, 
shut the South from the outside world 



Questions 

1. What advantages had the North at the beginning of the Civil 
War ? The South ? Of what use were the slaves to the South during 
the War ? 

2. Why did the North have the advantage on the ocean? How 
did the Appalachian barrier affect the war? What railroads pierced 
it? To which army were the Shenandoah and the Great Appalachian 
valleys of most use ? Was Richmond easy of approach ? 

3. What rivers formed great highways into the South? Why 
were they useful for the North and harmful for the South ? 

4. What railroads were especially important in the Civil War? 
Were they as useful as rivers ? Why were Vicksburg, Manassas Junc- 
tion, Bowling Green, Corinth, and Chattanooga important places ? 

5. What advantages did the southern soldiers have over the 
northern ? 

6. What did it mean to declare the southern ports in a state of 
blockade? How did the blockade affect the South? What were the 
blockade runners doing ? Why did they risk much ? 



372 THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR 

7. What help did the Confederates seek ? Who sympathized with 
them ? Who did not ? What class in England suffered greatly from the 
Civil War in the United States ? 

8. Why did the United States have trouble with England? Why 
did the United States release Mason and Slidell ? Who in England did 
help the South ? What should the English government have done 
in the matter? 

9. Describe the first important battle of the Civil War. What 
part did the railroad and the telegraph have in the battle? Why 
did the Confederate army win? What did the officers of the North 
and of the South learn from the battle ? 

10. What successes had the Northern navy before the end of the 
first year ? 

Exercises 

1. Find on a map (see page 362), the rivers, railroads, and important ' 
towns mentioned in this chapter, and tell why each one was mentioned. 

2. How was the attempt of the South to secure help from England 
and France like the attempt of the colonies to secure help from France, 
Holland, and Spain in the Revolution? 

Important Date- 
July 21, 1861. The Battle of Bull Run. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 

A Long Struggle. — Compared with other recent wars, 
the Civil War had by 1862 lasted a long time. Two years 
before, France had begun a war with Austria in April and it 
had ended in July. A few years later, a war between Aus- 
tria and Prussia opened in June and closed in August. The 




e Line of Defense in January, 1862 

Civil War was to last three years longer, although within a 
year and a half it was clear that the North was slowly gain- 
ing the advantage. The change was due to campaigns in 
the Mississippi Valley, for the positions of the armies in 
Virginia remained almost the same in spite of the most des- 
perate fighting. 

Confederate Line of Defense broken. — In January, 
1862, the Confederate line of defense ran from the fortifica- 
tions at Columbus on the Mississippi River, through Port 

373 



374 STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 

Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson, twelve 
miles away on the Cumberland, past Bowling Green, to Cum- 
berland Gap. The position of Columbus was very strong. 
It was situated on bluffs so high that it could not be reached 
by guns fired from armed steamers, while the plunging fire of 
its batteries would destroy any vessels which attempted to 
pass. If the Confederate line was to be broken, the attack 
must be made elsewhere. The Union officers concluded to 
make it at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The expedition 
was commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant, a graduate from 
West Point, who had fought in the Mexican War. 

General Grant's army was assisted by armored gunboats, 
a new land of war vessel. Seven had been built at St. Louis 
in 1 86 1. They did not resemble ordinary river steamboats. 
Their sides were sloping and built of heavy oak planking. 
In front the oak was twenty-four inches thick and covered 
by iron plates two and a half inches thick. The sides next to 
the machinery were also covered with iron. As the gunboats 
moved through the water they looked like great clumsy 
turtles. 1 

Capture of Fort Donelson. — The little war fleet steamed 
up the Tennessee to within 600 yards of Fort Henry and com- 
pelled it to surrender after a lively cannonade. A similar 
attack on Fort Donelson was not so successful, for two of the 
gunboats had their steering gear shot away and drifted about 
helplessly. Grant ordered an immediate attack by his army, 
and after severe fighting the Confederate commander sur- 
rendered with 14,000 men. The news of this success filled 
the North with rejoicing. It was the first important vic- 
tory which the Union troops had gained. 

The loss of the two forts which guarded the upper waters 
of the Tennessee and the Cumberland threw the Confederate 
defense into confusion. Both Columbus and Bowling Green 
were abandoned. Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, situ- 
ated on the Cumberland River, was also abandoned by the 

1 A few armored vessels had been used in Europe nine years before 
in the Crimean War. 



CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS 375 

Confederate troops within ten days. Light gunboats 
steamed up the Tennessee to northern Mississippi and 
Alabama, destroying or capturing southern steamboats and 
supplies. The Confederate armies established a new line of 
defense running from Memphis through Corinth and Chatta- 
nooga. This line was also broken after one of the severest 
battles of the war, that of Shiloh, near Pittsburg Landing on 
the Tennessee River. 1 Corinth was then taken, and a gun- 
boat fleet moved down the Mississippi and forced Memphis 
to surrender. The Confederates held thereafter no other 
important fortified place on the Mississippi River except 
Vicksburg, for New Orleans had meanwhile been captured. 




A Mississippi Ironclad Gunboat 

Capture of New Orleans. — The capture of New Orleans 
was an exploit of the Union navy, under the leadership of 
Flag-officer David G. Farragut, a native of Tennessee, who 
had remained loyal to the national government. Farragut 
fought his way, April 24, past the forts which guarded the 
river below the city. A Federal army soon landed and took 
possession. The fall of New Orleans, the largest city and 
the principal seaport of the South, was a great blow to the 
Confederacy. It opened the lower Mississippi to northern 
fleets and made the blockade easier. 

1 At Pittsburg Landing, about twenty miles from Corinth, Grant 
acted as if he had forgotten how near the enemy was. The Confederates 
under Albert Sidney Johnston surprised him and drove his army back 
in disorder during the first day's fighting. The great Confederate 
leader was killed in battle. During the following night General Buell 
re-enforced Grant with a fresh army. The second day Grant drove the 
Confederates off the field. 



376 STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 

Nothing further was accomplished in the West by either 
side for several months. General Bragg led a large Confed- 
erate army through the Appalachian Valley into Kentucky, 
hoping to rally the people of that state to the southern 
cause. He was checked in the neighborhood at Louis- 
ville. He then retreated into Tennessee, where at the close 
of the year he fought the desperate battle of Murfreesboro, 
but failed to dislodge the Federals from the central part 
of the state. The beginning of 1863 found the Federal 
troops in the positions they had won in Tennessee and 
northern Mississippi. 

Federal Plans in Virginia. — The partial success of the Fed- 
eral plans in the West was not repeated in the East. The 
hopes of the North were centered on the Army of the Potomac 
which McClellan had organized and which numbered 185,000 
men. McClellan planned to transport this army to the old 
Yorktown peninsula and to advance upon Richmond. In 
March, 1862, the appearance in Hampton Roads of a new 
Confederate fighting ship threatened his plan, for a day at 
least. 

11 Merrimac " and " Monitor." — Upon the outbreak of 
the war the national government had abandoned the navy 
yard in Norfolk, Virginia. A powerful frigate, the Merrimac, 
had been set on fire and then sunk. The Confederates raised 
it, cut away its masts, and boxed the main part of the deck 
with sloping sides covered with heavy iron plates. It was a 
much stronger vessel than any of the gunboats recently com- 
pleted at St. Louis. 

On March 8, the Merrimac steamed out of Norfolk and 
attacked the frigates on blockade duty in Hampton Roads. 
One it rammed and sank, another it set on fire. The cannon 
balls of the Union guns glanced from its iron plates like rubber 
balls. Its commander, satisfied with his day's work, steamed 
back to Norfolk, expecting to destroy the rest of the fleet 
the next day. When the news of what had happened reached 
Washington, the government was thrown into a panic, for 
President Lincoln and his officials believed that the Merrimac 



"MERRIMAC" AND "MONITOR" 



377 




The "Monitor" and the 
"Merrimac" 



would move up the Potomac and fire on the capital. The 
sea power appeared to have passed to the Confederates. 

Fortunately for the Union cause, John Ericsson, a Swedish 
engineer, had just completed in the Brooklyn navy yard a 
vessel equally formidable, called the Monitor. Its deck was 
raised only a few feet above the water line. Upon the deck 
was placed a round gun-house or turret, turned by machine- 
ery, so that the two heavy guns could be pointed in any 
direction. These who saw 
it for the first time com- 
pared it to a " cheese-box 
on a raft." 

When the Merrimac 
moved out of Norfolk, 
on March 9, to complete 
the destruction of the Fed- 
eral fleet, it was met by 
this strange antagonist, 
scarcely one-fourth its size. 
For four hours the two cannonaded each other. The Monitor 
had the advantage in rapidity of motion, so that it could 
avoid the heavy blows of the Merrimac's ram. Finally the 
Merrimac gave up the fight and retreated to Norfolk. Both 
sides claimed the victory, but the Merrimac did not come out 
again, and two months later it was blown up by its own men 
when they were obliged to abandon Norfolk. 

The battle of the ironclads in Hampton Roads interested 
the whole world. Builders of naval ships in England and 
Europe saw that the older kind of battle-ship was now useless 
and that they had to reconstruct their navies. The " Super- 
Dreadnought " of to-day does not much resemble the little 
Monitor, but the use of the turret is the same. 

Winning Victories and losing a Campaign. — The success 
of the Monitor enabled McClellan to begin his campaign. 
His army was carried down to the neighborhood of York- 
town by water. It was well organized, and the soldiers had 
confidence in their leader. McClellan was a good manager. 



378 



STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 



He made full use of railroad and telegraph. As his army 
marched forward a telegraph line was run to his new head- 
quarters. He could telegraph to the President or the Sec- 
retary of War at any moment. If the army paused, wires 
were run to the headquarters of every division of troops, so 
that McClellan could send his orders instantly. 

McClellan was not a " fighter " like Grant. He listened 
to rumors which declared that the Confederates had more 
soldiers than he, although he had twice as many. He was 








J *p- 



A Crossing of Bull Run near the Battle Field 
After a photograph taken in 1862 

angry because the government kept McDowell with 40,000 
men near Washington, instead of sending them to aid in the 
capture of Richmond. Just at that time Jackson had thrown 
the Washington officials into a panic by a raid down the 
Shenandoah Valley as far as the Potomac. McClellan won 
several victories, but was finally obliged to abandon the 
attempt to capture Richmond, although once he was within 
four miles of the city. The commander of the Confederate 
army at first was Joseph E. Johnston, but he was wounded 
and General Lee took his place. 

Lee's Successes. — Some weeks later, in the last days of 
August, 1862, Lee severely defeated a Union army a second 
time on the old field of Bull Run, and drove it back on Wash- 



LEE'S SUCCESSES 



379 



ington. It was his turn to plan an invasion. In September 
he marched north, east of the Blue Ridge, and crossed the 
Potomac into Maryland. This was an attempt to carry the 
war on to Union soil and to relieve Virginia. McClellan was 
recalled from the Peninsula to defend Washington. On Sep- 
tember 17, with an army twice as large as Lee's, he checked 
Lee at Antietam. His methodical caution permitted Lee to 
return to Virginia. McClellan was now removed from com- 
mand. In December, a new commander, General Burnside, 
recklessly hurled the Union army 
against Lee on the heights behind 
Fredericksburg, and was repulsed 
with frightful losses. More than 
twelve thousand of his best troops 
were left on the battle field. 
After that the armies rested and 
the year closed in Virginia much 
as it had opened. Gloom and 
discouragement prevailed in the S, 
North. Two years had passed, v 
and the South was unconquered. 
Instead, it was rejoicing in 
victories. 

A New Weapon, January 1, 1863. 
pointment Lincoln decided to try a new weapon against the 
South. During the war the slaves had remained faithful to 
their masters, generally in ignorance of what it all meant. 
They raised the food which supplied the Confederate armies, 
or acted as teamsters and laborers, or as servants to the of- 
ficers. Their work relieved the southerners so that more 
men could serve as soldiers. 

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln announced that henceforth the 
slaves in all the Confederate states not at that time held by 
Union troops would be considered as free. He hoped that 
this would weaken the South. It would mean that wherever 
northern armies went after that date the slaves would be 
made free and cease to support the Confederates. 




Robert E. Lee 
In this time of disap- 



380 STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 

Lincoln hoped for even more from his emancipation proc- 
lamation. There were increasing numbers of people in 
England and in the North who looked upon slavery as a 
great wrong. Lincoln himself said, " If slavery is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong," but he wanted to save the Union, and 
" not either to save or destroy slavery." He thought that 
was for the southern states to do. He said, " If I could save 
the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I 
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. And if 
I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I 
would also do that." He finally decided that he could save 
the Union only by destroying slavery. 

Results of the Emancipation Proclamation. — The only 
immediate effect of the decision was to encourage those in the 
North opposed to slavery and to win the sympathy of the 
English people. Abolitionists and Unionists were now united 
in a common cause, for the success of the North meant 
both the saving of the Union and the freeing of slaves. 

Lincoln's Plan of paying the Owners of Slaves. — Slavery 
had been gradually breaking down in the loyal border states 
and in the other slave states wherever the Union army went. 
In such places the negroes were roaming about working for 
whomsoever they pleased and whenever they pleased. Many 
of them found employment as soldiers, or laborers about the 
Union camps. In 1862 Congress had freed the slaves in the 
District of Columbia and had paid the owners for their loss. 
Lincoln was anxious to extend the same arrangement to the 
border states. He proposed that Congress in like manner 
compensate all owners of slaves in the border states and in 
the South who would recognize the Union, but such plans 
were soon forgotten in the heat of war. 

Will the Union fail? — The third year opened darker than 
ever for the Union. Lincoln's proclamation of Emancipation 
gave offense to the northern Democrats, who thought that 
the President had no power to interfere with slavery in the 
states whether in time of peace or war. Lincoln had said 
that he could not in time of peace, but that the war gave 



COST OF THE WAR 381 

him, the power. Besides, the Democrats had never believed 
Lincoln capable of saving the Union. Men asked whether 
it would not be better to yield to the South and stop so 
costly a war. Many of the soldiers were weary of the strug- 
gle. Officers said that a thousand deserted every week. The 
government was unable to obtain sufficient volunteers in 
some states, especially in New York, and drafted men- — 
that is, chose them by lot — for the army. 

Cost of the War. — The expenses of the national govern- 
ment before the outbreak of the Civil War had been small, 
reaching in i860 only to the sum of $63,000,000 a year. 
They were nearly twenty times that before the war closed. 
At first Congress was afraid to lay heavy taxes, lest the people 
should lose their enthusiasm to preserve the Union. By 1862 
Congress began to tax everything. Among the taxes was one 
like the Stamp Act of 1765, providing for the use of stamps on 
receipts, legal papers, and other documents. Congress also 
authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow large 
sums, giving interest-bearing bonds in return. In 1862 it 
was decided to issue " Greenbacks " instead of depending 
alone on taxes and on selling bonds. The Greenbacks were 
like the Continental money issued during the Revolutionary 
War. Prices in paper money rose until they were more than 
twice as high as prices in gold or silver. Very little coin 
was in circulation. In order to sell its bonds the government 
aided in the establishment of National Banks, permitting 
them to issue bank notes if they bought government bonds 
of a value greater than the amount of the notes issued. 

If the National government found difficulties in raising 
money, the Confederate government had difficulties still 
greater. It relied on the cotton crop as a means of borrow- 
ing money in Europe, but the cotton could not be exported. 
It also issued paper money, which lost value much faster than 
the Greenbacks. 

Gettysburg, July, 1863. — In May, 1863, the Union army 
attempted to march overland against Richmond, only to 
be defeated again by Lee at Chancellorsville. But the vie- 



382 STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 

tory was costly to the Confederates, for during the battle 
" Stonewall "Jackson was accidentally shot by his own men. 

General Lee concluded to carry the war again into the 
northern states. He believed that a decisive victory near 
Philadelphia or Baltimore would end the struggle. The 
northern Democrats would rise against the Republican Presi- 
dent. Their sons would cease volunteering in the Union 
army. The bankers would refuse to lend their money. 
England and France would recognize the Confederacy as an 
independent republic. 

Lee advanced, this time by way of the Shenandoah Valley, 
and crossed Maryland into Pennsylvania. Once his cavalry 
approached within three miles of Harrisburg. General 
George G. Meade was now in command of the Union army. 
He met Lee at the little town of Gettysburg. The battle 
raged for three days. For the first two days the Confeder- 
ates seemed to be gaining. But the main position of the 
Union army was very strong. It was on Cemetery Ridge, 
south of Gettysburg. This ridge was about three miles long 
and was composed of hills. At the northern end it curved 
around like a fish hook. Here the Confederates advanced 
part way up the slope. Their principal position, however, 
was Seminary Ridge, parallel to Cemetery Ridge ' and about 
three-quarters of a mile away across gently rolling fields. 

On the third day, July 3, 1863, Lee decided to strike a deci- 
sive blow. General Pickett was ordered to charge the center 
of the Union line, which was under the command of General 
Hancock. For two hours before the charge 115 cannon bom- 
barded the Union army. When Lee thought that it had 
been thrown into confusion, Pickett, with 1 5,000 Confederate 
veterans, advanced across the fields and up the slopes of the 
ridge. Two of the bravest officers of the Civil War were 
pitted against each other, Hancock against Pickett. Pickett's 
men advanced. Shot poured into their ranks from every 
side. Men fell by companies. And yet on they went. A 

1 Seminary Ridge was named for a Lutheran school situated there. 
Cemetery Ridge was the location of the town cemetery. 



THE TURNING OF THE TIDE 



383 



hundred or so reached the Union line and fought hand to 
hand, only to fall or be made prisoners. 

The battle of Gettysburg stopped the invasion of the 
North. On the Fourth of July Lee slowly, painfully, sadly 
returned to Virginia. The crisis for the North was past. 
But at what a cost ! Lee had left behind 28,000 men, killed, 
wounded, and missing ; Meade, 23,000. This was the end of 
the fighting in the East in 1863. 

The Capture of Vicksburg, July 3, 1863. — The third day 
of July, 1863, was a memorable day in the Civil War. On 




The Gettysburg National Military Park 

Looking southwest over the fields across which Pickett charged. Round Top 

at the upper left part. The " clump of trees " in the middle distance 

the same day that Meade turned Lee back, Grant captured 
Vicksburg. This was a -natural fortress set on high bluffs, 
footed with marshes and rivers. 

Since Grant's successes on the Mississippi in 1862, he had 
been preparing for the capture of Vicksburg. The Union 
army tried to take the town first by assault, but failing, 
settled down to a regular siege. The people of Vicksburg still 
tell of the horrors of the last weeks of the siege — how they 
hid in caves to avoid bursting shells ; how, finally, they were 
forced to eat shoe-leather to keep from starving ; how fathers, 
brothers, husbands, and sons died in the trenches. 

The Turning of the Tide. — The Confederates lost an army 
of 30,000 with the surrender of Vicksburg. Three states 



384 STORY OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT 

Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, were cut off from the rest 
of the Confederacy. Union fleets sailed up and down the 
Mississippi. The Mississippi Valley lay at the mercy of the 
Union armies. 

Questions 

1. What were the chief points in the Confederate line of defense 
at the beginning of 1 862 ? 

2. Where did Grant begin the attack on the Confederate line of 
defense ? Why was the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson re- 
garded as a great loss to the Confederate cause and a great gain to the 
Union ? What other points did the Union army capture? 

3. Who captured New Orleans? Why was its capture a great 
loss for the Confederate states ? 

4. What did General Bragg try to do ? 

5. What was McClellan's plan in 1862? What would have been 
the result of the success of the Merrimac ? Why were Europeans 
interested in the battle of the Merrimac and the Monitor ? 

6. In what ways was McClellan a great leader? Why was he 
unsuccessful in his attempt to capture Richmond? 

7. What success did Lee have in 1S62? What defeat? 

8. Why did Lincoln declare the slaves in the Confederate States 
free ? What change was taking place with regard to slavery in the 
border states ? What plan did Lincoln urge on Congress ? 

9. How did the United States and the Confederate States obtain 
money with which to carry on the war ? 

10. Why was the victory of Lee at Chancellors ville said to be costly 
for the Confederates ? What was his plan after this victory ? 

11. Describe the battle of Gettysburg. Why was the result of 
such great importance for the United States? 

12. What success had Grant in the West? 

Exercises 

1. Find on the map, page 373, or locate on an outline map on the 
board, the chief points in the Confederate line of defense at the begin- 
ning of 1862, again after the fall of Fort Donelson, and finally after the 
fall of Vicksburg in 1863. 

2. What resemblance is there between the Monitor and a modern 
Super- Dreadnought ? 

Important Dates: 

January 1, 1863. Lincoln declares the slaves in the Confederate 

States, except the parts held by the northern army, to be free. 

July 3, 1863. The battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg. 



CHAPTER XXXV 
CONQUERING A PEACE 

The North grows stronger. — We have seen that at the 
beginning of the war the North had an advantage over the 
South not only in population but also in agriculture and 
industry. This advantage increased as the struggle went on, 
for workmen on farms, in factories, on steamship lines and 
railways were just as necessary to success as soldiers on the 
field of battle. 

By the fall of 1863 scores of new factories had been built in 
the North to make muskets, cannon, armor for ironclads, 
and other military and naval supplies. Great quantities of 
iron ore were brought from Lake Superior to Chicago, Cleve- 
land, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. Other kinds of manufacturing 
also flourished. Clothiers learned to make uniforms in 
standard sizes by the thousands, " ready-to-wear " instead 
of by the tailor's method of fitting each customer. Shoe 
factories adopted Gordon McKay's machine for sewing 
the uppers of shoes to the soles. As a result one man could 
do the work of 100 men in the old way. The shoe shops 
scattered over the country by the way-side disappeared as 
their men found other work or joined the armies. Huge 
shoe factories in Lynn, Haverhill, Dan vers and other cities 
supplied the government with the shoes it required. One 
who watched the busy life of a northern city at the time would 
scarcely have imagined that a terrible war was raging three 
or four hundred miles to the south. 

Some of the greatest changes took place on the farms. 
The place of the farmer's sons who enlisted in the army was 
taken by machinery. By the close of the war 250,000 
reapers were in use, each of which could cut nearly an acre 

385 



3 86 



CONQUERING A PEACE 



an hour. Thousands of women on the farms did the work of 
the absent men. Immigrants continued to come from north- 
ern Europe, especially England and Ireland, and they, too, 
strengthened the North for the final struggles of the war. 
The population of the states in the valley of the upper Missis- 
sippi was half again as large in 1870 as in i860, in spite of the 
losses by war. 

New industries were also begun. A little while before the 
war petroleum was found in several regions by drilling deep 
wells. In 1862, 3,000,000 barrels of petroleum were taken 
from the wells, chiefly in northwestern Pennsylvania. The 




Scene in the Oil District of Pennsylvania 

crude oil was sent to Cleveland, Erie, Pittsburgh, and other 
cities and refined, making kerosene, gasoline, naptha, and 
other useful products. 

The discovery of silver and then gold in Nevada started 
a rush of settlers to that region like that to California in 
1849. Nevada grew so rapidly that Congress admitted it into 
the Union in 1864. Settlements were also begun in the 
region since included in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and 
Arizona. Such discoveries also increased the wealth and 
power of the North.' 

1 Shortly before the opening of the Civil War a line of overland 
coaches began carrying the mail ami passengers regularly from the 
Missouri River to New Mexico, California, and Oregon, following the 
trails of the prairie schooners. Short lines were started to the chief 



SANITARY COMMISSION 



387 



Sanitary Commission. — Still another group of people 
were of great help to the armies in the field. At the opening 
of the war the women formed Ladies' Aid Societies and made 
bandages, lint, towels, bedclothes, and whatever else the 
soldiers needed to make their lot comfortable. Some women 
in New York City formed a relief association which grew into 
the United States Sanitary Commission. The men and 
women who joined it did the work that the Red Cross has 
since taken over. Fairs were held everywhere to raise 
money. The Sanitary Commission sent nurses and supplies 
to the armies. In the leading cities soldiers passing through 



' k S -"IH 



f *'^3SP^ W =7~^ r '* "T" 




■W# v 

iS IWiiilllt. 

,,.,., ',....iW.j. '■■■-■ Kta- < " ,„6,.;, :i :t^j a«s-« 



Home of the Sanitary Commission in Washington in 1863 

The Sanitary Commission tried to send to the soldiers each month a box containing 
edibles and wearing apparel 

were supplied with meals, lodgings, and the comforts they 
would have had at home. The work of a few of the members 
of the Sanitary Commission like Clara Barton has not been 



mining camps of Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. It required 
22 or 23 days and nights of continuous traveling to reach California. 
The heavy four-mule stage-coaches were dragged at a galloping pace 
over desert and mountain roads. It was anything but a comfortable 
journey, sleeping in the seats, halting ten minutes for meals, and watch- 
ing at all times for attacks from hostile Indians. The " Pony Express," 
a line of fleet horsemen, carried the more important mail over the same 
route in about eight days. In 1861 a telegraph line joined the East 
and the West in easy communication, and soon displaced the "Pony 
Express." 



388 CONQUERING A PEACE 

forgotten. She went from camp to camp distributing supplies 
for the wounded soldiers. 

Condition in the South. — While the North was growing 
stronger, the South was becoming exhausted. The people 
worked loyally for the success of their cause, but the dis- 
advantages of their situation were too great. Corn and 
wheat, the principal crops of the North, continued to find 
markets in England and on the Continent. Cotton, the 
principal crop of the South, could not be sold. The bales 
were used for breastworks or lay exposed to the weather. 
If Union armies passed where cotton was stored, they seized 
it. Many of the farmers gave up raising cotton and raised 
corn to feed their armies. They were paid in Confederate 
paper money, which sank lower and lower in value. Mrs. 
Davis kept a diary in Richmond, and in 1864 she wrote 
that a turkey cost her $60, a pair of shoes Si 50, and a barrel 
of flour S300. In 1865 this money was worthless. Other 
forms of wealth besides money gave out. Unable to secure 
iron and other materials for the railroads, these wore out. 

During the war most of the able-bodied men were in the 
army. At least a third of them were killed or crippled. 
In their absence the work was done by the old men, women, 
children and slaves. They also had to learn to make articles 
which they could no longer obtain by trade with the North or 
with England. 

People who lived in the South at the time tell how they 
parched rye and dried blackberry leaves to take the place 
of coffee and tea. The women drew out the spinning wheels 
and hand-looms, and made clothing. They found herbs and 
roots to furnish dye stuffs. The old men and the more 
skillful slaves learned to make shoes and ordinary tools. In 
ways of living they went back to the old colonial times. 

Another Gate to the Cotton States. — In the fall of 1863 
the scene of war was shifted to eastern Tennessee. The 
prize of victory was Chattanooga and the passes south of it 
through the Appalachians into northern Georgia. After 
gaining possession of the city, the Union army was defeated 



GRANT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 



389 



at Chickamauga Creek, a few miles southward. Only the 
courage and skill of General George H. Thomas, a Virginian, 
who commanded the left of the Union line, saved the army 
from ruin. The rest of the army was retreating in disorder, 
and his troops were hemmed in on three sides, but he could 
not be driven from his position. On that day he won the 
name of the " Rock of Chick- 
amauga." 

Soon after the battle of 
Chickamauga, General Grant 
took command. Supported 
by Sherman, Thomas, and 
Hooker, 1 he attacked the Con- 
federates on Lookout Moun- 
tain and Missionary Ridge. 
Again General Thomas's men 
covered themselves with glory. 
Without waiting for orders, 
they attacked the crest of the 
ridge immediately in front of 
them, and clambered up the 
slopes of Missionary Ridge, three or four hundred feet high, 
over rocks and tree trunks in the face of a withering fire. 
The story of their successful charge deserves a place beside 
that of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. 

The victories around Chattanooga were as important as 
the capture of Vicksburg. The gateway into the older cotton 
states was open. Would a northern army pass through into 
the very heart of the South? This question troubled the 
Confederate leaders at the beginning of 1864. 

Grant Commander-in-Chief. — Lincoln once said that it 
was a bad plan to change horses while crossing a stream, 




Ulysses S. Grant 



1 Hooker's army of 23,000 was sent from Virginia, on the railroads, 
by way of Louisville and Nashville, a distance of 1192 miles, in seven 
days. Longstreet's army had been sent by rail to reenforce the Con- 
federates before Chickamauga. Its route was also roundabout, through 
the Carolinas and Georgia. 



390 CONQUERING A PEACE 

but several times he had been obliged to change commanders 
of the army. He was always on the lookout for a general 
whom he could fully trust. For two years he had been watch- 
ing the straightforward, modest, untiring soldier of Fort 
Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. In February, 1864, 
he made Grant Lieutenant-general and placed him in com- 
mand of the whole Union army, in the East as well as the 
West. Sherman was given the immediate command of 
the western armies, while Meade still commanded the Army 
of the Potomac. Grant, assisted by Meade, undertook 
in May, 1864, an advance upon Richmond. On the same 
day Sherman began the invasion of Georgia. For the first 
time all the Union armies were to aid one another in carry- 
ing out a common plan. The Confederates could no longer 
shift troops by rail from Virginia to the Southwest or from 
the West to Virginia. 

The Armies in 1864. — The armies of both North and 
South had long been composed mainly of veteran soldiers. 
The losses had to be made up by new recruits, but these 
untried men learned quickly by the experience and example of 
the older soldiers. The northern army was gaining steadily 
in numbers, while the southern army was decreasing, because 
the North had a far greater population upon which to draw. 
In 1864 the Union armies contained more than twice as 
many soldiers as the Confederate armies. 

Grant's Advance. — In the campaign of 1864 Grant was 
true to his reputation as a fighter. His plan was to march 
overland upon Richmond. He outnumbered Lee two to one, 
but much of the time Lee had the advantage of fighting 
behind earthworks which defended every approach to the 
Confederate capital. The first struggle took place in the Wil- 
derness, not far from the battle-field of Chancellorsville. It 
was not a defeat for Grant, but neither was it a victory. 
Other commanders might have withdrawn in order to make 
a new start, but Grant ordered his army to move around the 
Confederate right. He resolved to hammer constantly at 
the obstacle and wear out his antagonist. Lee's losses were 



GRANT'S ADVANCE 



391 



more costly than Grant's, because the gaps in his ranks could 
no longer be filled. Grant lost in the summer campaign as 
many men as Lee had in his whole army, filling their places 
with recruits. Before summer was over he had laid siege to 
Richmond, though he had not succeeded in breaking through 
Lee's lines of defense. 

Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. — As at the time of 
McClellan's advance in 1862, a Confederate army under Gen- 
eral Early was sent down the Shenandoah Valley to throw 
Washington into a panic and prevent reinforcements being 
sent to Grant. Grant sent General Sheridan, who became 







Field-works for Defense 

The kind used in the Civil War 

famous as a cavalry commander, to drive Early off. Sheri- 
dan had twice the force of Early, and before the harvest 
season was over had cleared the Valley of Confederates. He 
also laid waste the Valley. Barns, mills, and many houses 
were burned. The horses, mules, and cattle were driven 
away. Grant and Sheridan meant that the farmers of the 
Shenandoah should never again furnish Lee with provisions. 
It was said that a crow flying over the country would have 
to carry his provisions with him. 

The Taking of Atlanta. — While Grant hammered away at 
Lee's lines around Richmond, and Sheridan laid the beautiful 
Shenandoah Valley in blackened ruins, Sherman carried out 
his part of the plan. His army advanced from Chattanooga 
into Georgia. The Confederates destroyed the railroad as 
they retreated, and Sherman rebuilt it. Upon that railroad 



392 CONQUERING A PEACE 

he depended for food and military supplies, sent from Louis- 
ville through Nashville and Chattanooga. As Sherman had 
100,000 men and 35,000 horses, he calculated that to deliver 
food and forage regularly would have required 36,800 wagons, 
each drawn by six mules. The telegraph also followed his 
advance, so that almost every day he was able to send word 
to General Grant of his progress. On September 2 he suc- 
ceeded in capturing Atlanta, the chief manufacturing town 
for military supplies in the Confederal 

Farragut at Mobile. — While Sherman was still fighting 
about Atlanta, Farragut, with a strong fleet, attacked tin- 
defenses of Mobile, Alabama, one of the few southern ports 
which still remained open. His ships had to fight not only 
the Confederate forts, but also an iron-clad ram, the Tennes- 
see, almost as powerful as the Merrimac. After a severe 
struggle the Tennessee was taken and the forts surrendered. 

From Atlanta to the Sea. — After remaining in Atlanta 
several weeks, Sherman obtained Grant's consent to a bold 
plan of marching across Georgia to the sea. General Thomas 
with a part of the army, returned to Chattanooga to defend 
Tennessee, for a Confederate army had started northward, 
hoping to draw Sherman after it. That army Thomas de- 
stroyed near Nashville in December. 

Before Sherman left Atlanta, storehouses, mills, machine 
shops — everything which contributed supplies to the Con- 
federate armies — were destroyed. As his army swept across 
Georgia it left a track of desolation nearly 60 miles wide. 
The Georgia farmers had been raising corn instead of cotton, 
and they furnished a large part of the food for Lee's army. 
Sherman, like Sheridan in the Shenandoah, left nothing that 
eould be of any use to an army. Bridges were burned, rail- 
roads were torn up, and the rails were heated and twisted. 

Sherman's army marched twelve or fifteen miles a day. 
There was no army to oppose, and Sherman captured Sa- 
vannah in time to offer it to Lincoln as a Christmas gift. 

Reelection of Lincoln. — Before the campaigns of 1S64 
were over a new election had taken place. Many Republi- 



SURRENDER OF LEE 



393 



can politicians, unmindful of the great work that Lincoln had 
done, planned to set him aside and put forward some one else 
as the candidate of the Republican party. When the conven- 
tion met they discovered that the people believed in Lincoln. 
The opposition dwindled into nothing, and he was trium- 
phantly nominated. The Democrats nominated General 
McClellan, declared the war a failure, and urged the sum- 
moning of delegates from all the states to a convention which 
should restore peace. The news of the capture of Atlanta, 



I ! 




A Confederate Hospital on the Firing-line 
In front of Petersburg 

of Farragut's capture of Mobile, and of Sheridan's victory 
over Early in the Shenandoah put new life into Lincoln's 
cause and he was reelected. 

Drawing the Net on Lee. — Sherman's march from Atlanta 
to the sea destroyed Lee's last important source of supplies. 
The end of the war was near. In January, 1865, Sherman's 
army continued its journey. This time it marched north- 
ward across South Carolina and North Carolina. Sherman 
was slowly drawing the net closer upon Lee. 

Surrender of Lee April 9, 1865. — Grant had not ceased his 
attacks on Lee during the winter. Food and ammunition 
was slowly giving out in Richmond. Lee's army was finally 
reduced to parched corn for food. On April 2 Lee abandoned 
Richmond. He could hold it against Grant no longer. One 
week later the two met at Appomattox Court House, and 



394 CONQUERING A PEACE 

arranged terms of surrender. Lee's army had melted away. 
Only a few more than 25,000 of his once magnificent force 
remained to lay down amis on April 9. Grant's terms were 
generous, as Lincoln wanted them to be. The Confed- 
soldiers were to retire quietly and peaceably to their homes. 
The men should take their horses, because, said Grant, 
" They will need them for the spring plowing and farm work." 
General Lee in a simple and manly manner bade his men 
farewell. " Men," he said, " we have fought through the 
war together. I have done my best for you. My heart is 
too full to say more." 

Assassination of Lincoln, April 14, 1865. — Friday, April 
1 4 , was a day of happiness in the North and of mourning in 
the South. The day was the fourth anniversary of the fall 
of Fort Sumter. The war was over. The South had failed 
to establish a separate republic. The United States was re- 
united in name, at least, if not yet in heart. The President 
and Mrs. Lincoln went to the theatre with a small party of 
friends. During the play, a half-crazed actor, Booth by name, 
shot the President. In the morning Lincoln died. The 
country's rejoicing was turned to the deepest mourning. 
The death of the generous leader, in whose heart was no 
bitterness against the South, was the greatest disaster of the 
Civil War. The divided nation needed his services to guide 
it through the problems of reconstruction. Once, to those 
who were planning revenge and persecution, Lincoln had 
gently said, " Judge not that ye be not judged." 

The Cost of the Civil War. — No one knows what the 
Civil War cost the American people. Nearly a million of 
the strongest men in the North and South lost their lives. 
Hundreds of thousands of men labored for four years, not 
to produce things which the world needed, but to kill or 
capture one another. Much of the wealth which the south- 
ern people had accumulated was swept away, and they and 
their children were obliged to start anew as they had in 
colonial days. The American people are still paying debts 
which the war caused. Billions of dollars have already 



THE COST OF THE CIVIL WAR 395 

been spent. It would have been far cheaper to have paid 
the owners of the slaves the whole value of their laborers, 
twice over. 

After all, it was not a matter of money. The southerners 
believed that it was a struggle for existence, for rights inher- 
ited from their fathers, especially for the right to govern them- 
selves. The people of the North felt that saving the Union 
was still more important. They came to look upon slavery 
as the great stumbling-block to a better national life. There 
seemed to be no court of final appeal except war. 

Questions 

1. In what ways was the North growing stronger? The South 
growing weaker ? How did organizations like the Sanitary Commission 
help the armies in the field ? 

2. What victories did the United States win around Chattanooga? 
Why were these as important as the capture of Vicksburg ? 

3. Whom did Lincoln put in command of the Union army in 1864? 
What was the new commander's plan for 1864? Why could Grant 
afford to fight when he lost more men in battle than Lee ? 

4. Why did Sheridan devastate the Shenandoah Valley ? What was 
Sherman's part in the campaign of 1864? Of what advantage was the 
railroad and telegraph to Sherman? 

5. What important port did Farragut capture? Why was its loss 
a great disaster to the South? 

6. What was the object of Sherman's march from Atlanta to the 
Sea ? How did he then proceed to draw the net upon Lee ? Why did 
Lee finally give up ? What terms did he obtain from Grant ? 

7. How was the rejoicing of the North at the end of the war turned 
into mourning ? 

8. What did the Civil War cost the country? 

Exercises 

1. Find on a map of Eastern Tennessee the places mentioned in the 
paragraph on "Another Gate to the Cotton States." 

2. Locate the railroad over which Sherman obtained his supplies 
in the campaign against Atlanta. 

3. Why was the South defeated in its attempt to form a republic? 

Important Dates: 

April 9, 1865. The surrender of Lee. 

April 14, 1865. The assassination of Lincoln. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

PEACE AND ITS PROBLEMS 

Return of the Soldiers. — The soldiers of the Union and 
Confederate armies were sent to their homes as rapidly as 
possible. Over a million men in 1865 gave up the life of 
camps, marches, and battles, and began to work on farms or 
plantations, in shops, factories, or offices. The southern 




The Ruins of Charleston 

soldier made his way home, commonly on foot. He found the 
farm grown up to weeds, the fences down, wagons gone or 
fallen into pieces. Cities like Richmond and Atlanta were 
in ruins. Business was at a standstill. The outlook was 
discouraging. 

The return of the northern soldier was altogether differ- 
ent. His cause was successful. His states had seen little or 
nothing of hostile armies. Farms had been extended, new 
mills had been built, and thousands of immigrants had helped 
to keep industry active. 

The South s Hardest Question. — When peace came the 
southerners were obliged to rebuild what had been torn down 

396 



A NEW LEADER 



397 



or burned during the war. But this was not their greatest 
difficulty. They had to find laborers. The negroes were 
still among them, but no longer as slaves. The rich planter 
who once owned a thousand slaves could not order the 
negroes to work for him any more than could his neighbor 
who had never owned one. 

Another difficulty nearly as great was, How should the 
states which had declared their independence, or, in other 
words, had seceded, be treated after the Confederate armies 
had surrendered? Both mat- 
ters should have been settled 
by the wisest men of North 
and South, men like Lincoln, 
with malice toward none. He, 
better than other northern 
leaders, understood the South 
and the problem of peace. He 
was ready to answer all ques- 
tions in the spirit of fairness 
and charity. 

A New Leader. — The death 
of President Lincoln raised 
the Vice-President, Andrew 
Johnson, to the Presidency at 
one of the most difficult times in the history of the United 
States. Johnson had been a poor boy. He had had scarcely 
any education, but he had energy and ability, and soon 
became a leader in Tennessee. The politicans chose him as 
Vice-President in 1864, because he could win a few southern 
votes for the party. None of them expected that he would 
become President. He was rugged, narrow-minded, and 
quarrelsome. 

The leaders of the Union party in Congress were little, 
if any, better fitted than Johnson for the new tasks. 
Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner in the 
Senate believed that the southern people intended to rebel 
again or restore slavery. 




Andrew Johnson 



39« PEACE AND ITS PROBLEMS 

The Freedmen. — The negroes had not learned the mean- 
ing of freedom, when it was suddenly given to them. The 
story is told that William Lloyd Garrison visited a camp of 
freedmen near Charleston. "Well, my friends," he said, 
" you are free at last ; let us give three cheers for freedom ! " 
When he tried to lead the cheering the negroes stood in 
dead silence. To some freedom meant the right to be idle the 
rest of their lives. A great many thought that it meant a 
division of the old plantations among them. They fre- 
quently asked, "When is the land to be divided? " They 
heard rumors that the government would soon give each one 
forty acres of land and a mule. 

Those who crowded to the towns and camps that were 
established by the army, or who roved about the country, 
suffered terribly from poverty and disease. The conse- 
quence was that as many negroes died within two years 
after their emancipation as there were northern soldiers 
who lost their lives in the whole Civil War. 

Frederick Douglas, one of their own race, who had escaped 
from slavery and educated himself, said of the freedman in 
1865, " He was free from the old plantation, but he had 
nothing but the dusty road under his feet. He was free from 
the'old quarter that once gave him shelter, but a slave to the 
rains of summer and to the frosts of winter. He . . . was 
turned loose, naked, hungry, and destitute to the open sky." 
There were 4,000,000 of these people in 1865, more than 
whites and blacks together in the entire nation in 1783. 

In his Emancipation Proclamation President Lincoln had 
freed only the slaves living in the states under the control of 
the Confederacy. Maryland and Missouri voluntarily freed 
their slaves in 1864 and 1865. By the end of 1865 slavery 
remained lawful only in Kentucky and Delaware, and even 
here it had nearly disappeared. Finally, in December, 1865, 
an amendment was added to the national Constitution for- 
ever forbidding slavery anywhere in the United States. 1 

1 Three years later the Fourteenth Amendment gave the freedmen all 
privileges of citizenship except that of voting. 



REORGANIZING SOUTHERN STATE GOVERNMENTS 399 

The Freedmen's Bureau. — The leaders in Congress did 
not believe that the southerners would treat their former 
slaves fairly, and established the Freedmen's Bureau to watch 
over the negroes, distribute relief, and establish schools. The 
purpose of the Bureau was excellent, but many of its agents 
taught the negroes that the southerners meant to oppress 
them. The result was that the two races, which needed to 
be friendly, were driven farther apart. Besides, the fact that 
the government distributed supplies convinced the freedmen 
that they were not obliged to work, and led multitudes to 
leave the plantations in the midst of the summer of 1865, 
making the situation worse. 

The Plantation System breaks down. — The planters, 
without either slaves or free laborers on whom to depend, 
and without money to hire them, were " land-poor " after the 
Civil War. Some sold the plantations for what they could 
get, a fourth or a tenth of the former value, and made 
a living in some other manner. Whether the planters sold 
the plantations or not, the land was divided into small 
farms, and rented on shares to white tenants or negroes. 

The poorer farmers had a better chance to make a living 
after the plantations were broken up. They did not suffer 
from competition with planters owning vast amounts of rich 
land and controlling large gangs of slaves. Better methods of 
cultivation were introduced, so that by 1870 they were raising 
50 pounds more of cotton on an acre than the planters had 
raised under slavery. The building of new railroads helped 
them to market their crops, as the railroads had helped the 
small farmers in the Northwest. 

Reorganizing the Southern State Governments. — As the 
Civil War drew to a close, President Lincoln had prepared to 
make the way easy for the reorganization of the seceded states 
and for their re-admission to the Union. " Forgive and for- 
get ' ' was his rule in such matters. President Johnson adopted 
Lincoln's plan and took steps in the summer of 1865 to reor- 
ganize the governments of the southern states and to hold 
elections for Congress almost as if there had been no war. 



400 PEACE AND ITS PROBLEMS 

Johnson blundered in dealing with Congress and in trying 
to induce it to carry out his plan. Men like Stevens and 
Sumner distrusted the leaders in the Confederacy and wished 
to keep them from gaining control of their governments. On 
the other hand, the southern people made some mistakes. 
The leaders were defiant toward the North. They advocated 
harsh and unfair laws in order to make the negroes work. 
Their mistakes and the blunders of Johnson combined to 
drive the moderate men in Congress over to the side of 
Stevens and Sumner. Congress, instead of following 
Lincoln's plan of generosity and charity toward the Confed- 
erate States, adopted Stevens's plan in which vengeance and 
distrust were the main motives. 

Stevens's Vengeance and Sumner's Ideal. — In 1867 ten 
southern states were divided into five military districts. 
Tennessee escaped, because it had already made terms with 
Congress and had been re-admitted into the Union. Army 
officers ruled the districts as though the war was still going 
on. Many of the southern leaders were deprived of their 
right to vote in the elections, while their former slaves were 
given the privilege. Finally, when the states had forbidden 
slavery, had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, and had 
adopted negro suffrage, they were allowed to reenter the 
Union. From 1867 to 1870 the states fulfilled the hmi con- 
ditions. This satisfied Thaddeus Stevens, who detested the 
southern whites, and Charles Sumner, who wished to give the 
negroes the privilege of voting. 

Congress and the President. — President Johnson opposed 
the Congressional treatment of the South. He vetoed every 
important measure which Congress passed, and denounced 
its leaders in words more vigorous than polite. Congress 
then passed each measure over his veto. Feeling became so 
bitter that Congress turned from its work of keeping the 
South dependent upon the North to make sure that the 
President was dependent on Congress. In 1868 some of his 
more violent enemies accused him before the Senate of " high 
crimes and misdemeanors." Had he been convicted, he 



CARPET-BAG GOVERNMENT 401 

would have been removed from the Presidency. It was 
fortunately impossible to obtain the necessary two-thirds' 
vote for conviction. Before Johnson's term expired, in 1869, 
Congress proposed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, adopted a year later, giving the negroes the same privi- 
leges in voting which the white people had. Up to that time 
only six northern states had allowed the negroes to vote. 

Slaves become Rulers. — In South Carolina, Florida, 
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the new voters out- 
numbered the white voters. In Georgia the two were about 
equal. For several years the cotton states were ruled by the 
former slaves. 

" Carpet-Baggers." — Many northern men were attracted 
to the South after the Civil War by the cheapness of the land 
or by the chance of being chosen to office by the votes of the 
freedmen. The southern people called them " carpet- 
baggers " because they arrived with little more than a carpet- 
bag or satchel, in which their belongings were packed. They 
were men of all kinds, some honest, others dishonest, some 
noble-minded, others rascals. The carpet-baggers and the 
negroes held the offices and governed the states as completely 
as if the former rulers of the South had vanished. 1 

Carpet-Bag Government. — The new rulers knew almost 
nothing about governing a country, and least of all one in the 
ruined condition of the South after the war. The members 
of the legislatures voted themselves large salaries. They 
ordered at public expense fine clothes, laces, perfumes, expen- 
sive wines and cigars, jewelry and furniture, horses and car- 
riages. As one said, they believed that the state should take 
care of its statesmen. There were even worse things than 
extravagance and misuse of state money. Men bought 
justice and favors like merchandise. The debts of the 
states were increased four, five, six, or seven-fold, under such 
ignorant and corrupt rulers. 

1 A few southern white men joined with the negroes and carpet- 
baggers. Such men were held in great contempt by their white neigh- 
bors, and were called "scalawags." 



402 



PEACE AND ITS PROBLEMS 



Ku Klux Klan. — As the United States troops kept the 
southern people from openly resisting their " carpet-bag " 
government, the southern people formed secret societies, 
named the Ku Klux Klan, Pale Faces, White Brotherhood, 
and the like. Whatever the name, the objects were the 
same : to keep lawless negroes from stealing and other crimes, 
to frighten them from voting and holding offices, and to drive 

carpet-baggers out of the coun- 
try. Some of the disguises 
which the members of these 
societies wore were terrifying. 
Their faces were masked, and 
they were shrouded in white. 
Even their horses wire cov- 
ered with long white gowns. 
The members rode around the 
negro cabins in the dead of 
night. Lawless men frequent ly 
made use of the same disguise 
to commit robbery and mur- 
der. In the North it was 
generally believed that all these secret societies of the South 
were organized to terrify, rob, and murder the negroes. 

Southerners again rule the South. — The rule of the 
carpet-baggers lasted in some parts of the South until 1877. 
As long as Federal soldiers were kept in the southern states 
the carpet-baggers remained in control. They had persuaded 
the freedmen that the Republican party had freed them, and 
that the Democratic party wished to place them back in 
slavery. Most of the negroes, therefore, voted the Republi- 
can ticket. General Grant, who was President from 1869 to 
1877, thought that the soldiers should not be withdrawn. 
But Rutherford B. Hayes, who was chosen President in the 
election of 1876 withdrew the army as soon as he was in- 
augurated. The southern people quickly drove the remain- 
ing carpet-baggers from power and took complete control 
themselves. From that time the votes of the freedmen, if 




Rutherford B. Hayes 



THE END OF AN ERA 



403 



they took the trouble to vote, have had little influence upon 
the government of the southern states. 

The End of an Era. — By 1876 the work of restoring the 
southern states to their full rights in the Union was almost 
completed. It was also just a hundred years since the 
Declaration of Independence. The year was therefore chosen 
as a good time to review what the country had learned how 
to do. A great fair, called the Centennial Exposition, was 
held in Philadelphia. Nearly every state took some part 
in it. The South showed the progress that it was making 



^''ft"??IH^aiiTn^-,Tiinn^*-'--^ ' i r I ' 






'-is -it+SPte'-Ji - . -1^M*--< '' 



~W»-4 <*'$■ 




Main Building at Philadelphia Exposition, 1876 

with free labor. The farms, mining towns, and ranches of 
the West displayed their work. Manufacturers vied with one 
another in showing their wares and explaining the methods 
of making them. New inventions were exhibited, such as 
the airbrake, the typewriter, and the telephone. 

Foreign nations also took part in the Exposition. The 
products of "the skilled workers of almost all countries were 
placed beside the wares of American workmen. They in- 
cluded woolens, china, steel from England and Germany, 
laces and silks from France, rugs and tapestries from Turkey 
and Persia, carvings in wood and ivory from India, China, 
and Japan. The art exhibits of Europe aroused new interest 
in art among Americans. The school methods of the old 
world, especially the work in the kindergarten and in manual 
training, taught American schoolmen how to improve their 
own system of education. 



404 PEACE AND ITS PROBLEMS 

All the displays of the Exposition were housed in great 
buildings constructed for them. Millions of people, many of 
whom had never traveled, visited the Exposition and saw 
the work of the whole world spread out before them. They 
gained a better idea not only of what had been accomplished 
but also of the improvements still to be made. So the 
Centennial Exposition marked the end of one era and the 
beginning of another. 

Questions 

i. What conditions did the southern soldiers find on returning 
home ? The northern soldiers ? 

2. What hard questions did the country have to meet at the close of 
the war ? Why was Lincoln's death a great misfortune to the South ? 

3. Were the freedmen prepared to use their freedom wisely? How 
did they come to suffer greatly? What was the object of the Freed- 
men's Bureau ? What was the result ? 

4. What became of the plantation system? Who profited most 
from the change ? 

5. What influenced Sumner and Stevens in reorganizing the southern 
states after the Civil War? What did the states do which aroused the 
northern leaders ? 

6. What terms of admission into the Union did Congress require 
of the former Confederate states? Why did President Johnson and 
Congress quarrel ? What did Congress try to do with him ? 

7. What privilege did the Fifteenth Amendment give the negroes? 
Who were the carpet-baggers? How did the new rulers of the South 
manage the government of the states ? 

8. What was the Ku Klux Klan? How long did the rule of the 
carpet-baggers and freedmen last ? What effect had President Hayes's 
removal of the army? 

Exercises 

1. Wherever possible, learn from a soldier of the Civil War what 
changes he found on returning home after the war. 

2. In what ways did the Centennial Exposition benefit the Unit 
States ? 

Important Dates : 

1862. Congress begins the policy of giving free homesteads to 

pioneers in the West. 
1867. Congress fixes the terms of re-admission of southern states 

into the Union. 
1876. The Centennial Exposition is held in Philadelphia. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
NEIGHBORS AND RIVALS 

" Alabama " Claims. — The war had left other unsettled 
questions. The most important grew out of the fact that 
the British government had permitted ships to be built in 
British shipyards and sold to the Confederates. The damage 
done by these ships, especially by the Alabama, amounted to 
millions of dollars^ The dispute might easily have led to 
war, because there were many Englishmen who wished to 
fight rather than acknowledge that they were wrong. There 
were Americans, too, like Charles Sumner, possessed by 
the wild idea that England might be compelled to pay 
$200,000,000 and give up Canada, on the ground that her 
sympathy for the South had prolonged the war and had 
caused the United States great loss and suffering. Fortu- 
nately, both countries had statesmen with common sense 
and common honesty. The English Prime Minister, William 
E. Gladstone, and the American Secretary of State, Ham- 
ilton Fish, agreed to leave the settlement of the dispute to 
five arbitrators. England and the United States each chose 
one, and Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland also chose one each. 
In 1872 they decided that England had injured the United 
States to the amount of $15,500,000 through the destruction 
of ships. The decision was unpopular in England, but the 
English government paid the money promptly. The way 
in which the dispute was ended set a noble example to the 
world of a method better than war for settling such questions. 

Question of Mexico. — The United States had a question 
to settle with France, the ruler of which was Napoleon III, 
a nephew of the great Napoleon. Europeans had many 
claims against the Mexican government, some of them like 
those which Americans has had before their war with Mexico. 

405 



406 NEIGHBORS AND RIVALS 

England and Spain decided in 1861 to join France in forcing 
the Mexicans to pay. Soon, however, England and Spain 
discovered that the Emperor Napoleon had other plans in 
mind and they refused to have anything further to do with 
the enterprise. The fact was that Napoleon meant to set 
up an empire in Mexico strong enough to check the spread 
of English-speaking peoples in North America. He also 
thought that a canal should be dug through the Isthmus of 
Panama, making a waterway as important as the Bosphorus, 
which flows between Europe and Asia. 

Napoleon chose a time for carrying out his dreams when 
the United States was too busy with the Civil War to inter- 
i\ iv. He sent thousands of soldiers to Mexico and spent 
millions of money. In 1864 he set up Maximilian, brother 
of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, as Emperor of 
Mexico. The United States had protested against his conduct, 
but in vain. When the Civil War closed and the United 
States had several hundred thousand veteran soldiers under 
arms and ready for action, the Emperor Napoleon wisely 
listened to the protests and withdrew his troops, leaving the 
unfortunate Maximilian to his fate. Two years later Maxi- 
milian was captured by the Mexican republicans and shot, 
on the ground that he had ordered republican prisoners shot 
as rebels. The action of the United States showed that the 
Monroe Doctrine had not been forgotten. 

Purchase of Alaska. — In 1861, two years before President 
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Alexander II, Czar of 
Russia, proclaimed that the Russian peasants should be 
freed. They were not slaves like the southern negroes, but 
their labor was owned by the nobles who possessed the lands 
on which they lived. They were serfs, like the English and 
French peasants in the Middle Ages. By this act of 1861 
Alexander also won the name of " Emancipator." It was 
natural that he should sympathize with the United States 
during the Civil War. The North felt grateful for this Rus- 
sian sympathy, especially as there was danger of war with 
England and France. 




R. B. BerTOM,Xn»'t»N-."I. 



PURCHASE OF ALASKA 



407 







After the Civil War was over the Russian government 
unexpectedly offered to sell Alaska. Secretary Seward, a 
member of Lincoln's cabinet who had been retained by Presi- 
dent Johnson, received the proposal and arranged a treaty 
or purchase. Americans at that time supposed that Alaska 
was a frozen region, its inhabitants Esquimaux, and " its 
chief products polar bears and glaciers." Congress was in 
the midst of its quarrel with Johnson and unwilling to 
carry out any plan proposed by his administration. Sumner 
believed that Seward's 
bargain was a good 
one and his influence 
in the Senate was 
strong. Besides, many 
Congressmen remem- 
bered Russia's friend- 
ship and wished to 
show proper apprecia- 
tion. The treaty was 
therefore accepted in 
April, 1867. The new 
territory was twice as large as Texas, and as large as the 
original thirteen states together. The cost was $7,200,000, 
which the natural wealth of Alaska, unknown at that time, 
has many times repaid, though its resources in gold, coal, 
fish, and agricultural products have barely been touched. 

A United Canada. — The talk about the seizure or conquest 
of Canada, which was common in the United States after 
the Civil War, alarmed the Canadians and they resolved to 
strengthen themselves by union. In 1867 there were six 
British colonies in North America: Canada, divided into 
two provinces, — Quebec and Ontario, — Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and, far 
away on the Pacific Coast, British Columbia. Between the 
East and the West were three great natural basins, the 
Hudson Bay country, the Winnipeg region, and the Mac- 
kenzie River Valley, all unsettled. A great convention of 



v. 



i/ 




The Home of the Fur Seal 



408 NEIGHBORS AND RIVALS 

delegates met in Quebec and drew up a plan of union. The 
meeting recalls to mind the Federal Convention at Phila- 
delphia in 1787. In 1867 the new union was put into effect 
under the name, Dominion of Canada. This was like the 
English system of government, although in some ways it 
resembled that of the United States. The Dominion had a 
parliament instead of a congress, and instead of a president 
a prime minister who must be satisfactory to the majority 
in parliament. 

Only four of the provinces united in 1867. Four years 
later British Columbia, and shortly afterward Prince Edward 
Island, were admitted, much as the United States permits 
new states to enter the Union. Newfoundland, alone of the 
old colonies, remained outside of Canada. The government 
of Canada had a vast western territory out of which to make 
other states in later years. The growth of the Canadian 
Northwest is a part of the westward movement in American 
history. 

A Greater Britain. — The constitution which the Cana- 
dians drew up was agreed to by the British parliament. A 
governor-general was sent to represent Great Britain in Can- 
ada, but he was not to interfere with the right of the Cana- 
dians to govern themselves. They paid no taxes to the 
mother country and even charged import duties upon British 
products brought into the Dominion. All this was very 
different from the bitter dispute a century before between 
the British parliament and the colonies on the Atlantic shore. 
A new idea had taken possession of the leaders of Great 
Britain. They now thought that the Englishman who chose 
to live beyond the seas in Canada, South Africa, Australia, 
or any other country, should enjoy the same rights he would 
have at home. The expenses of the Empire, which troubled 
the men of 1765 so much, were paid from taxes collected in 
Great Britain, unless the colonics offered to bear a share. 

The change in views of the English leaders was mainly due 
to the adoption by parliament of new " reform " bills. These 
extended the reforms in government begun by the " Great 



A GREATER BRITAIN 



409 




The United States, Canada, and Mexico 

Alaska and its islands, if laid down on the United States, would touch the Atlantic 
Ocean on the southeast, Canada on the north, and the Pacific Ocean on the west 

Reform " bill of 1832, until almost every man in the land 
possessed the right to vote. Representation in parliament 
was also more fairly distributed. The government remained 
a monarchy, that is, a king or queen reigned, but it really 
became a democracy or government by the people. 

In parliament there is still a House of Lords, but the chief 
law-making body is the House of Commons. Its members 



410 NEIGHBORS AND RIVALS 

are elected by the people. The ministers, or cabinet, are 
chosen from the party that sends the most members to the 
House, and the leader is called the Prime Minister. He is 
actual ruler of the country as long as he can obtain more 
votes in the House for his measures than his opponents 
control. The monarch is obliged to follow his advice. Con- 
sequently the votes of the people through the votes of their 
members in parliament govern the government. This is 
what we mean by democracy. 

The consequences of democratic government in Great 
Britain have been many improvements of the old laws : 
protecting the workmen in the factories against accident, 
shortening the hours of labor, especially of women and 
children, and making it easier to purchase farms. In such 
ways the British government was becoming wiser and more 
just, while its empire was becoming greater in extent. 

Civil War in Germany. — While the United States was 
torn by a terrible struggle between the North and the South, 
a civil war of another kind raged in Germany. The states 
into which the Germans were grouped were almost as inde- 
pendent as if they had been separate countries. The prin- 
cipal ones were Prussia, Bavaria, and Austria. Altogether 
there were 38 states, 11 of them large. Their union was 
called a confederation. Their wars with one another were 
caused by attempts of the two greatest states, Prussia and 
Austria, to strengthen the confederation and take the lead 
in its affairs. One short war occurred in 1864 and another 
in 1866. Prussia seized the kingdom of Hanover, the 
duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and several smaller states, 
adding these to her own territory. Austria was no longer 
allowed any part in the affairs of Germany. All the northern 
states were formed into a North German Confederation. 
Four years later, during a war with France, the South German 
states entered the Confederation, which now became the 
German Empire with the King of Prussia as Emperor. 

In 1848 the revolutionists had dreamed of an empire which 
would rest upon the free consent of all the German peoples. 



AFFAIRS IN EUROPE 411 

This new Empire was far different — it was built on military 
force. Bismarck, the minister of the Prussian King, once 
said that " iron and blood," rather than fine speeches, were 
the surest means of getting what the Prussians wanted. 
The first act of the new Empire was to tear from France, 
which had been badly defeated in the war, two border lands, 
Alsace and a part of Lorraine. 

France a Republic. — The Emperor, Napoleon III, had 
been partly responsible for the war with Germany. He was 
taken prisoner at Sedan in September, 1870. As soon as the 
news reached Paris a republic was proclaimed. One of the 
first tasks of the new government, when the war was ended, 
was to raise the money with which to pay the indemnity of 
one billion dollars demanded by the Germans. The next 
duty was to agree upon a constitution, for many Frenchmen 
wished to recall to the throne a descendant of their ancient 
kings, but a majority of the people were in favor of ruling 
themselves with a president as their chief magistrate. The 
constitution which they adopted was more nearly like that of 
England than that of the United States, for they have a prime 
minister, whose power is greater than that of the president. 

United Italy. — The same years saw a union of all the 
Italian states under Victor Emmanuel as king. Until 1859 
Italy, like Germany, had been divided into several kingdoms 
or principalities. The northeastern part of the country, 
including the beautiful city of Venice, was ruled by the 
Emperor of Austria. For more than half a century the 
Italians had been dreaming of an Italy which should be 
united and should manage its own affairs. The dream, 
like so many others, could be realized only after many battles, 
but 187 1, which saw a united German Empire, also saw a 
united Kingdom of Italy. 

Austria-Hungary. — Austria, which was driven out of 
Italy and Germany, learned lessons from defeat and, pre- 
pared to live on better terms with Hungary, united with it 
under the rule of Francis Joseph. For many years the Em- 
pire of Austria had tried to manage the Kingdom of Hungary. 



412 NEIGHBORS AND RIVALS 

Now the leaders of both nations made an ingenious arrange- 
ment by which they might be united toward all the world 
but independent toward each other. 

But there were other peoples within Austria-Hungary 
whose rights were forgotten. These were the Czechs in 
Bohemia, the Slovaks in northern Hungary, and the Jugo- 
slavs who lived in the southern lands of the Dual Monarchy. 

Questions 

1. What were the Alabama Claims? How were they settled? 

2. What excuse had France for sending an army into Mexico? 
What plan had the Emneror of France formed ? How was the question 
settled ? 

3. How did Alexander II of Russia obtain the name of Eman- 
cipator? How did the United States come to possess Alaska? 

4. Why did the Canadian provinces form the Union or Dominion 
of Canada? Describe the government of Canada. What provinces 
formed the Union ? Which one has never joined the Union ? 

5. What is England's new way of treating her colonies? Does 
she require them to pay taxes? What changes have been made in 
the British government ? 

6. What caused the Civil War in Germany ? What was the result ? 

7. What change in government took place in France? In what 
way is the government of France more like that of England than that 
of the United States ? 

8. What did the Italians do about the same time ? What arrange- 
ment did Austria and Hungary make ? 

9. Which were the great united nations in 1876? 

10. What people in Austria-Hungary were not given the same rights 
as the Austrians and Hungarians ? 

Exercises 

1. Prepare a list of great questions which the United States and 
Great Britain have peaceably settled. Tell how each was settled. 

2. Compare England's treatment of the thirteen American colonies 
in 1765— 1775 with that of the Canadian provinces in 1867. 

3. Prepare a list of the countries in which a struggle for "union" 
occurred. 

4. Review the change in government in England in 1832. See page 
289. 

Important Date : 

1872. 1 England and the United States settle the dispute over the 
Alabama Claims by arbitration. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 
NEW LEADERS AND NEW PROBLEMS 

The Presidents from 1869 to 1897. — For many years 
after the close of the Civil War the presidents were of the 
Republican party. Not until 1885 did a Democratic presi- 
dent enter the White House. In this chapter we shall con- 
sider the questions the presidents had to deal with as far as 
1897, when President Cleveland's second administration 
came to an end and President McKinley was inaugurated. 

The fact that the Republicans were in power so long did 
not mean that there were no political struggles. In one 
instance the struggle was so bitter that a section of the 
party broke away and nominated a candidate of its own. 
This nearly brought the Democrats into office. It happened 
in 1872, after General Grant had been president only three 
years. 

General Grant had been chosen because the people of the 
North felt that next to Lincoln he had done most to save the 
Union. He was a great general, but he was without experi- 
ence either in political affairs or in the business of government. 
Moreover, he was not always fortunate in his selection of 
officers to help him. Only one, Hamilton Fish, by the settle- 
ment of the dispute with Great Britain about the Alabama 
Claims, accomplished anything really popular. 

There were also questions left over from war time which 
divided the Republican party. One of these was about the 
tariff on imports. Some thought that such taxes, which 
had been made high in order to pay the expenses of the war, 
should now be lowered. Others said that they should be 
kept high as a protection to American manufacturers against 
foreigners who were always trying to undersell them. 

413 



414 NEW LEADERS AND NEW PROBLEMS 

The Republicans were also divided upon the advisability 
of keeping Federal soldiers in the South. Many of them 
thought that the southern people should be allowed to 
manage their own affairs. 

The consequence was that many discontented Republicans 
opposed Grant's renomination in 1872. When the Repub- 
lican convention made him their candidate these men formed 
what they called the Liberal Republican party and nomi- 
nated for the presidency Horace Greeley, editor of the New 
York Tribune. The Democrats also made Greeley their 
candidate, but Grant was elected by a large majority. 

A Contested Election. — The election of 1876 was even 
more exciting than that of 1872. The Republicans nom- 
inated General Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, and the Demo- 
crats, Samuel J. Tilden, a distinguished lawyer of New York. 
The results of the voting were very close. In three southern 
states both parties claimed the victory. As the election 
turned on the votes of these states, Congress was obliged to 
appoint a special commission to find out to which side the 
votes belonged. It was decided that General Hayes had 
been elected. 

A New Problem for the Presidents. — At the beginning 
of the administration of Hayes one problem was settled. 
The President withdrew the soldiers from the southern states, 
as has already been explained. The other problem was 
that of filling the many offices of the government with 
competent men. When President Hayes tried to apply the 
merit system to appointments in the post office of New York 
City he angered some Republican politicians who had been 
accustomed to have such positions filled by their friends. 

Two harmful ideas about government, dating from Jack- 
son's time, still prevailed. One was that any citizen was 
capable of holding office. The other was that the victorious 
political party might put out of office all its opponents and 
fill their places with its own members. The party leaders 
regarded offices as " spoils " which belonged to the victors in 
elections. The result was that every new president changed 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 



415 



all the office-holders under him down to clerks and errand 
boys. The task of dividing offices as rewards and favors 
among friends and party workers kept the best public 
officers busy when other things needed attention. Lincoln, 
besieged by office-seekers at the opening of the Civil War, 
declared that he seemed " like one sitting in a palace, 
assigning apartments to importunate applicants, while the 
structure is on fire and likely soon to perish in ashes." 
Matters had not improved since 
his day. 

Civil Service Reform. — A 
remedy for dishonesty and mis- 
management was urged. Part 
of the officials were elected, but 
the larger number were ap- 
pointed by the president. This 
was true also of the states and 
the cities in which the governors 
and the mayors had the appoint- 
ing power. It seemed clear that 
those officials who were ap- 
pointed should be chosen solely 
because they were capable of 
doing their work well. The reformers argued that their fitness 
could be determined best by an examination in which all 
candidates were asked the same questions. This new 
method of selecting men went by the name of " civil service 
reform," or the "merit system." Several men, among 
them Congressman Thomas Jenckes of Rhode Island, George 
William Curtis, editor of Harper's Weekly, and Senator Carl 
Schurz of Missouri, worked many years for the reform. 
Grant favored their plan and urged it in his messages. But 
Congress did not wish to lose the influence that the old system 
of appointment gave it, and little progress was made in 
Grant's time. His successor, President Hayes, and the next 
President, James A. Garfield, were also anxious to bring 
about the change. 




James A. Garfield 



4i6 



NEW LEADERS AND NEW PROBLEMS 



In 1881, a few months after Garfield In -came President, a 
disappointed office-seeker assassinated him. This event 
showed one danger of the spoils system. It moved the 
people, and, finally, Congress to action. In 1883, a long 
step was taken by giving to three Civil Service Commis- 
sioners the duty of holding examinations to test the fitness 
of candidates for certain offices. The plan applied chiefly 
to clerkships in Washington, but it has been slowly extended. 



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See-saw in Government 
/? stands lor Republicans ; D for Democrats. The top line in each case 
indicates the party in power. Only twice in the period were the members of one 
party uppermost in all three branches of the government at the same time, and 
then only for two years each. 

Nearly every President since 1883 has increased the number 
of government officials who must pass an examination. 
More than two thirds of the positions under the United States 
Government were by 191 2 filled in this way. The successful 
candidates are expected to hold the office permanently, or 
until they are promoted. In 19 10 President Taft urged 
that the " merit system " be extended to all postmasterships 
and to all offices in the diplomatic and consular service. 
Seven years later President Wilson adopted the reform for 
the postmasterships, putting about 10,000 postmasters under 
civil service rules. The same plan has been slowly applied 



A DIVIDED GOVERNMENT 



417 



in filling state and city offices. New York was the first state 
to adopt it, making the change in the same year that the 
national government began it ; Philadelphia was the first 
city to introduce it. 

A Divided Government. — One reason why not only 
President Hayes but also several of his successors were 
unable to carry out the reforms they planned was the con- 
trol of one of the two houses of Congress by the opposite 
party. During the first two 
years of his presidency the 
Democrats had a majority in 
the House of Representatives. 
No law could be passed which 
was not acceptable to them. 
During the last two years of 
the administration they con- 
trolled both House and Senate. 
Only twice in the two decades 
from 1877 to 1897 did the leaders 
of the party which elected the 
President control Congress also. 
In each case this was for but 
two years. 

Grover Cleveland. — President Garfield had been assas- 
sinated in 1 88 1. He was succeeded by the Vice-President, 
Chester A. Arthur. The next election, which occurred in 
1884, turned on the character of the candidates rather than 
upon the tariff or Civil Service Reform. The Democrats 
nominated Grover Cleveland and the Republicans James G. 
Blaine. Cleveland had been mayor of Buffalo and governor 
of New York. In these offices he showed that the interests 
of the people were of greater importance to him than mere 
political success. He managed public business "as a good 
business man manages his private concerns." These quali- 
ties won him the votes of many Republicans who distrusted 
the Republican candidate. The regular Republicans called 
such independent voters " Mugwumps," an Indian name 




Grover Cleveland 



4 i8 



NEW LEADERS AND NEW PROBLEMS 



for " chief," as if the independents thought themselves better 
and bigger than ordinary men. Cleveland was elected and 
the country had a Democratic President for the first time 
since Buchanan. 

The Republicans had a majority in the Senate, and so a 
Democratic House and President could accomplish little. 
In spite of this division of power one memorable law was 
agreed upon. This was the Interstate Commerce Act. It 

provided for a commission of 
five members which should see 
that the railroads carrying 
goods from one state to anot her 
treated all shippers fairly. The 
powers of the commission were 
enlarged in later years. 

Benjamin Harrison. - 
Toward the close of his admin- 
istration Cleveland urged that 
the high tariff be reduced. He 
believed that such taxes should 
be levied for revenue only. 
This was nearly what the Lib- 
eral Republicans had sought 
in 1872. The Republicans still urged the value of the tariff 
as a protection to American industries. That was the 
issue in the election of 1888. The Republican candidate 
was Benjamin Harrison, grandson of President William 
Henry Harrison. The Republicans not only elected their 
candidate but gained a majority in both houses of Con- 
gress. 

The Republican leaders used the opportunity to make the 
tariff still higher, to enlarge the navy, and to increase pen- 
sions to veterans of the Civil War. As the new tariff seemed 
to result in high prices the voters turned against the party, 
and during the second half of Harrison's administration the 
House of Representatives was Democratic. In the election 
of 1892 the Democrats made a clean sweep, reelecting Cleve- 




Benjamin Harrison 



RETURN OF CLEVELAND 



419 



land and obtaining a majority in both the Senate and the 
House of Representatives. 

The Return of Cleveland. — For the first time in American 
History an ex-President was called upon to return to the 
White House. Throughout Cleveland's second term as 
throughout Grant's, the President and his associates had to 
struggle against a panic. It began in 1893. Banks failed, 
factories closed. It was a period of hard times for nearly 
everybody. The poor people, 
unable to find work, suffered 
the most. The chief cause of 
the panic was the haste of 
manufacturers in building fac- 
tories and mills before a market 
was found for their output . As 
a result they soon found them- 
selves loaded down with prod- 
ucts they could not sell at 
the price it had cost them to 
make them. When they were 
obliged to sell them below cost 
their business went into bank- 
ruptcy. But there were other causes. The general extrava- 
gance and waste of public and private resources was one. Be- 
sides the system of money which the country used also seemed 
to need a thorough overhauling. 

Whether the tariff should remain high as the Republicans 
declared or be lowered as Cleveland urged remained one of 
the issues. Another was whether all the silver brought to 
the government mint should be coined into silver dollars at 
the rate of 16 silver dollars to 1 gold dollar. Cleveland's 
followers were divided upon these questions. In fact the 
Republicans were also far from united. In general the 
voters of the eastern states were more interested in a high 
tariff ; those of the western states in the use of silver money. 
The hardest contest over such questions came in the elec- 
tion of 1896. 




William McKinley 



420 



NEW LEADERS AND NEW PROBLEMS 



An Interesting Presidential Election. — As the Democrats 
decided to support the larger use of silver as a form of money 
cheaper than gold Cleveland could not continue as the leader 
of the party. He had taken sides with those in the East 
who favored gold. William J. Bryan of Nebraska had dis- 
tinguished himself as an advocate of silver, and the Demo- 
crats named him as their candidate for President. The 
Republicans proposed William McKinley who was their 
foremost champion of high tariffs. The candidate of the 




How the Country was divided in the Election ok 1896 

The shaded states were carried by Mr. Bryan, showing, in general, the region 

of agricultural discontent 

Democrats wished to make silver the main issue, the Repub- 
lican candidate laid stress on the tariff. 

In the main the campaign seemed to be a contest between 
East and West. The silver miners, who desired a larger 
market for their products, naturally supported Bryan. The 
farmers of the Prairie West who had recently bought their 
farms were still in debt. They saw that the use of silver, 
a cheaper money as the measure of value, would mean higher 
prices for their crops, and so the easier payment of their 
debts. They rallied strongly to the support of Bryan, whom 
they called the " Boy Orator." 



AN INTERESTING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 421 

In the East, McKinley was favored by those who had lent 
money or had other investments, because they wanted to 
be paid in gold which did not change in value as much 
as silver. He was also favored by those who believed in 
high tariffs. The owners of the new factories — " infant 
industries" they were called — feared that without the 
barrier of high tariffs their business would be ruined by 
cheaper goods made by the " pauper " laborers of Europe. 
The workmen in the eastern cities generally voted with them 
out of a fear that silver money and low tariffs would close 
the factories. Their recent experience with closed factories 
during the panic made this seem a real danger. 

The silver Republicans of the West bolted the party ; the 
gold Democrats of the East did the same. Each group voted 
for other candidates of its own choice. When the election 
came the old South favored Bryan ; the old North McKinley ; 
but the new West which had grown up on the plains since 
the Civil War, the Mountain states and the Pacific coast 
were divided, though mainly for Bryan. The country as a 
whole decided in favor of McKinley. 

The election resulted not only in the choice of a President 
but in the important decision that gold, as in Europe, rather 
than silver, should be the basis of the American monetary 
system. Before studying the new problems which arose in 
President McKinley's time we should know other changes 
which had taken place since the Civil War. What new 
methods of travel and work had been invented? What 
new settlements had been made to expand the Union ? What 
new immigrants had joined the American people? These 
questions and others about the growth of the United States 
from the time of Lincoln to that of McKinley need now 
to be answered. 

Questions 

1. What questions divided the Republican party in 1872? Who 
were the candidates for President in the election ? 

2. How was the contested election between Hayes and Tilden 
decided ? 



422 NEW LEADERS AND NEW PROBLEMS 

3. What harmful ideas about government prevailed long after 
Jackson's time? What did President Lincoln think of the spoils 
system ? 

4. What remedy for dishonesty and mismanagement in government 
was urged ? Who were the leaders in the movement for Civil Service 
Reform ? What was the effect of the assassination of President Gar- 
field on Civil Service Reform? Describe the Act of 1883. Has the 
"Merit System" been extended since 1883? 

5. What made it hard for any of the Presidents from 1877 to 1897 
to carry out any reforms planned ? When during the period were the 
members of one party uppermost in all three branches at the same time? 

6. Why was Cleveland selected as the candidate of his party for 
President? Who were the "mugwumps"? What memorable law 
was passed during Cleveland's first term ? 

7. On what issue did the Republicans elect Harrison ? What caused 
the panic in 1893? 

8. What were the issues in the contest between Bryan and McKinley 
in 1896? How did different sections vote? Why? 

Exercises 

1. Find out whether the federal, state, and town offices of the 
locality are filled by the Merit System or by the Spoils System. 

2. Prepare a table like that on page 416 for the last 12 years of 
your state to determine whether the Governors, Senates and Houses of 
Representatives were of the same party all the time. 

Important Dates: 

1883. Congress passes the Civil Service Reform Act. 

1887. Congress passes the Interstate Commerce 

1896. The Free Silver Campaign with William McKinley and 

William Jennings Bryan as Republican and Democratic 

candidates. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 
THE PRAIRIE STATES 

The Pacific Railroads. — During the Civil War, when 
Congress was anxious to keep the Pacific coast loyal to the 
United States, it voted to aid several companies in the con- 
struction of railroads from the Mississippi Valley to the 
coast. Two companies began building, the Central Pacific 
from Sacramento eastward, and the Union Pacific from 
Omaha westward. The government gave these roads twenty 
sections of land, or 12,800 acres, for every mile of road, and 
besides lent them money. A race was started to see which 
could build the most before they met. 1 

The Union Pacific had the advantage at first. Its line 
west of Omaha followed the Oregon Trail through a country 
so flat that little grading was necessary. More than half of 
the workmen were veterans of the Civil War. The Central 
Pacific advanced more slowly across the Sierra Nevada 
range, but it made up in speed when it reached the great 
desert basin. Thousands of Chinese laborers were brought 
into the United States for this work. The two lines met in 
1869 on the shores of Salt Lake near Ogden. 

The Pacific railroad was a great undertaking. The iron 
for the western part had to be carried by steamboats from 
the East around Cape Horn or by way of Panama. For the 
eastern part wood and iron and other materials were taken 
up the Missouri River in steamboats or across western Iowa 
to Omaha by " prairie schooners." The eastern railroads 

1 The United States gave the railroad companies that built the first 
railroad system connecting the Missouri River with the Pacific coast 
33,000,000 acres of land, an area much larger than the state of Penn- 
sylvania. It gave to the companies which built the western railroads 
enough land to make five states like Pennsylvania, or a country larger 
than France or Germany. 

v 423 



4M 



THE PRAIRIE STATES 



had not yet reached Omaha. The great works of the past, 
like the National Road, the Erie Canal, and the Pennsyl- 
vania Portage Railway, seemed small beside this road. Ex- 
cept for the small Mormon town of Ogdcn, no settlements 
had been made between Omaha and Sacramento, nearly 
1800 miles. The little settlements at Denver, Salt Lake, and 
Carson were off the route chosen. 

The earlier railroads had commonly been built to carry 
goods to the pioneers or to carry their products to the mar- 
kets. The new roads crossed regions as vet uninhabited. 




The Principal Railroads West of the Mississippi in 1884 

Like the rivers of the Atlantic coast or of the Mississippi 
Valley they guided the work of settlement. The immigrants 
scattered on either side, adding village to village until the 
slender band reached across the continent. In this way the 
Pacific coast and the Mississippi Valley were bound together 
as never before. 

Panic of 1873. — Other railroads were begun while the 
work on the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific was being 
completed. Indeed, as many miles of road were built in 
the four years ending in 187 1 as existed in the whole country 
shortly before the Civil War. Men, in imagination, saw 



NEW SETTLEMENTS 



425 



towns springing up everywhere. They borrowed recklessly 
to pay for rails, engines, and cars, or to buy town sites and 
lay them out. The consequence was a panic as bad as the 
panic of 1837. The country was only beginning to recover 
from it when the Centennial Exposition was held. For some 
time railroad building almost stopped. During these years 
the settlement of the West went on more slowly. 

The Indian Question. — 
The Indians watched the ad- 
vance of the settlers with 
angry feelings. Many of them 
remembered that ever since 
white men had landed on 
the Atlantic coast the Indian 
had been forced to give up 
one hunting ground after 
another. As in the colonial 
days, the settlers on the 
frontier were often attacked. 
The government sent soldiers 
to punish the hostile tribes, 
especially the Sioux and the 
Apaches. Several little wars took place. In a campaign 
against the Sioux in Montana, led by their chief, Sitting 
Bull, General George Custer, a young cavalry officer who had 
distinguished himself in the Civil War, and 264 of his troopers 
were suddenly surrounded and all of them killed. Only 
Custer's horse, Comanche, and a half-breed scout escaped. 
This was the last important Indian War. By 1877 most of 
the Indians were placed on reservations, either in the neigh- 
borhood of their old hunting grounds or in the great Indian 
Territory south of Kansas. 

New Settlements. — With the building of railroads a con- 
stantly increasing stream of settlers poured into the states 
and territories beyond the Mississippi. Part of them were 
from older states and part from Europe. In the year 1883 
alone, more than 750,000 immigrants entered the United 




Sitting Bull 



426 



THE PRAIRIE STATES 






States, chiefly from Great Britain and Germany. There 
also came thousands of Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes. 
Many of these immigrants settled in Minnesota, Iowa, Ne- 
braska, and the Dakotas. Unlike the settlers farther east, 
those who chose lands on the prairies found no forests to 
supply them with building material, and were obliged for a 

time to live in sod-houses 
or dug-outs. Corn or 
grass was often their only 
fuel. 

The Ranches. — The 
earliest settlers on the 
plains depended chiefly on 
their herds of cattle. The 
frontiersman in America, 
whether on the eastern 
slopes of the first colonial 
mountain barrier or in 
the Mississippi Valley, 
raised many cattle. The 
vacant lands in the neigh- 
borhood gave him free 
pasture for his herds. 
This was especially true 
on the great plains. Na- 
ture had made it a nation's pasture land. 

Many eastern men established vast ranches on the plains 
west of the farming settlements. These were mostly on the 
borderland, where the prairie ends and the mountains begin, 
a region too dry for ordinary farming. Cowboys in strange 
western dress, many of them Mexicans, tended great herds 
of long-horned cattle. Cowboys and steers took the place 
of the roving Indians and the wild buffaloes. The immense 
herds of buffaloes disappeared, slaughtered by wasteful, pleas- 
ure-seeking hunters. No fences were needed on the ranches. 
The cowboys lived with the herds, riding fleet bronchos and 
sleeping in the open air, much as did the Arabs of old. 




Populated 18G0 
CZlAdvonce bctweei 
1860 and 1870 



The Advance of Population in 
tfie West, i 860-1 870 



THE RANCHES 



427 



It was a common thing for one ranch to possess five, ten, 
or twenty thousand head of cattle, which fed over a region 
equal to a half dozen western counties. A few cowboys 
were able to take entire care of them. Branding the calves 
with the mark of the ranch, so that they would be known, 
fighting cattle thieves, and driving the fattened stock to the 
distant railroads once a 
year, formed the chief oc- 
cupations of the ranch- 
men. Grass, browned and 
cured on the ground, was 
the winter's food for the 
cattle. A deep valley, 
where little snow fell, 
formed the only shelter. 

The cattle raised on the 
ranches at slight cost 
were carried or driven to 
Omaha and Kansas City. 
At first they were for- 
warded to St. Louis or 
Chicago. By 1862 Chi- 
cago had become the 
center of the meat-packing 
business, as Cincinnati 




f~ H Populated 1880 

Advance between 
1880 and 1890 



The Advance of Population in 
the West, i 880-1 890 



had been in the preceding period. Chicago has always 
kept the lead in the business, although Omaha and Kansas 
City have gradually gained a large share in it. From i860 to 
1880 the value of the business increased from $30,000,000 to 
$300,000,000. Meat was sent all over the country in refrig- 
erator cars. After 1876 great quantities were prepared for 
sale in Europe. The refrigerator cars took the meat to an 
eastern port, where it was packed in refrigerating rooms on 
steamships. 

From 1870 to 1890 farmers gradually took up the open 
lands. Within ten or twenty years the free prairies for 
grazing disappeared and the great ranches were crowded out. 



428 THE PRAIRIE STATES 

Many small herds of better breeds of short-horned cattle 
replaced the large herds. Farmers, rather than cowboys, 
kept them on the grazing grounds and guarded them. Great 
barns were built to shelter them in winter, and stores of 
fodder were prepared for the winter's food. 

By 1890 the free fertile lands of the West were nearly all 
occupied. No longer could men leave shops or eastern 
farms when wages were low and take up free farms. The 
immigrant from Europe had little chance to become a land- 
owner at almost no expense, as he had been doing since the 
founding of Jamestown. 

The colonists had taken one hundred and fifty years to 
occupy the lands from the Atlantic Ocean to the first moun- 
tain barrier, a region about two hundred miles wide. But 
the later pioneers swept over the West, which was more than 
five times as wide, in twenty years. The difference was due 
in part to the railroads which helped the modern pioneers 
to reach the western lands and to create cities almost over 
night. It seemed as though the West possessed Aladdin's 
magic lamp. 

For a while the new towns and country districts were 
almost without government. Ruffians took refuge in the 
frontier towns, and in the ranches and the mining camps in 
the mountain districts farther west. They made a " Wild 
West " of the region. Showmen now like to travel over the 
country exhibiting the ways of such rough western towns. 
These days of lawlessness and danger, which have always 
been a characteristic of the American frontier, lasted only a 
short time. Neat frame houses took the place of the sod- 
houses and the dug-outs, and thrifty stores came in where 
gambling dens had thriven. Orderly town, county, and state 
governments were modeled after those in the older states of 
the Mississippi Valley. Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado 
had by entering the Union extended the states to the Rocky 
Mountains. California and Oregon had long stood as 
sentinels of the Union in the West. In 1889 and 1890 the 
frontier governments of North and South Dakota, of Mon- 



WHAT THE PIONEERS DID 



429 



tana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington became of age and 
took their place beside their sister states. They completed 
a solid double tier of states across the northern part of the 
United States. In 1896 Utah, first settled by the Mormons, 
became a state, and so filled in the space between Colorado 
and Nevada. 

What the Pioneers did. — The earliest settlers on the 
prairie farms escaped some of the hardships of the other 
frontiersmen. They did not have the drudgery of felling 




A Cattle Ranch in 1880 



huge forests or digging drains in swamps. They never 
suffered from malaria and ague as the pioneers did elsewhere. 
But they had other troubles instead. Some years the green 
crops dried up in the fields before harvest time for the want 
of enough rain. Many men gave up the hard struggle and 
returned to the eastern states. Those who stayed finally 
learned to plant crops that needed less rain and to cultivate 
the land in such a way as to make the best use of all the 
water in the soil. As they grew more skillful in dry farming 
they pushed to the very edge of the desert-like plains lying 
near the Rocky Mountains. Such pioneers taught others, 
and now failure occurs no oftener there than in other parts 



43© THE PRAIRIE STATES 

of the United States. The conquerors of America are the 
sturdy pioneers who have stayed on the frontiers until 
nature yielded to their will. 

Wheat for the World. — Farming large tracts of land was 
easier on the plains than elsewhere. The prairies were level, 
unbroken, and extensive. Railroads were at hand to carry 
large crops to the cities, where the increasing population 
needed more food. For such reasons some men have estab- 
lished mammoth farms, especially wheat fields. Often these 
cover 10,000 or 20,000 acres. On them, powerful traction 
engines or an army of teams draw great machines — com- 
bined plows, seed-drills, and harrows — for planting, with 
reapers and threshers for harvesting. 

Great farms of this kind are the exception. Moderate 
sized farms of 160 or 320 acres are the rule. Everywhere 
the farmers use the newer farm machinery. They prepare 
the soil by riding plows and cultivators, put in the seed by 
the use of planters and drills, and harvest with self-binders. 
Steam threshing machines complete the work. 

Mills and Elevators. — The other work of the middle and 
farther West is done on an equally large scale. Monster 
grain elevators were built at railroad centers or lake ports 
like Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, 
and Buffalo. In Minneapolis, especially, great flour mills 
began to grind thousands of barrels of flour a day. The 
small mills, driven by water power, which formerly dotted 
wheat growing regions, gradually fell into ruins. The sale 
of wheat to Europeans increased rapidly. It was ten times 
as great in 1880 as in i860. 

Questions 

1 In what ways did the United States help to build the first Pacific 
railroads? Why was building the Pacific railroads a difficult under- 
taking? What effect had the western railroads on settlement? 

2. What caused the panic of 1873? What effect had the panic on 
the settlement of the West? 

3. What attitude did the Indians take toward the settlement of 
the prairies? How did the United States treat the Indians? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 431 

4. Who settled the states west of the Mississippi? How did the 
pioneers on the prairies live ? 

5. Describe the cattle ranches of the frontier. Where were the 
cattle marketed ? What change finally took place in the cattle country ? 

6. Why was the prairie region more rapidly settled than the Atlantic 
coast ? 

7. What new states were formed in the West ? 

8. What did the western farmers produce ? How did the farmers do 
their work ? What industry grew up in the wheat-growing region ? 

Exercises 

1. Name and locate the chief Pacific railroads. 

2. Compare the methods of farming in colonial days with those in 
the western states to-day. See pages 99-100. 

3. How did the settlers reach the frontier in colonial days? How 
in the days of the settlement of the western prairies ? 

Important Dates : 

1869. Completion of the first Pacific railroad. 

1890. By this date the free lands useful for farming, without 
irrigation, were mostly gone, thus ending the era of colon- 
ization within the United States. 




Sod-House of a Pioneer on the Prairies 



CHAPTER XL 
NEW METHODS OF WORKING 

The New Factory System. — The early factories took 
from the household and the small shop such industries as 
spinning, weaving, and forging. As the use of machinery 
increased and new inventions were made, other household 
industries — the making of butter and cheese, the preserving 
or canning of fruits and vegetables, the curing, and even the 
cooking of meats — were moved in part to the factory. 

Factories also increased in size, as water power was used 
less and steam more. Many factories originally located near 
swift-running streams were abandoned. If the water power 
was abundant, they were enlarged, but steam was often used 
as well as water power. 

The towns of New England, New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania, which first began weaving silk, cotton, and 
woolen goods, or tanning leather, and making these products 
into clothing, shoes, and gloves, still continue in the same 
industries. Their factories are commonly run by steam or 
electricity. They must often send to a distance for fuel as 
well as for materials like cotton, wool, and hides. In spite of 
these disadvantages they arc able to continue in the same 
business because they have made a reputation for good work- 
manship and have a body of trained men and women in their 
factories. 

Since the Civil War, factories have slowly migrated wher- 
ever fuel, materials, and skilled workers are found near 
together. For this reason cotton mills are rising in the 
South, woolen mills and shoe factories in the middle West. 
It is still true that the western people raise most of the food 
and produce most of the materials used in manufacturing, 
while the eastern people make most of the finished articles. 

432 



THE USES MADE OF ELECTRICITY 



433 



The Uses made of Electricity. — Marvelous things have 
been accomplished in the same period in the use of electricity. 
In 1866, after many efforts, a telegraph cable was laid 
through the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Several years later 
an inventor improved Morse's telegraph so that two messages 
could be sent in opposite directions over the same line at one 
time. Soon four messages could be sent at once. 

Alexander Graham Bell, a teacher of the deaf, while study- 
ing the human ear, thought of a plan of " talking by tele- 
graph." In 1876, after years of work, he exhibited a suc- 




' Scene in a Knitting Mill 

cessful instrument at the Centennial in Philadelphia. This 
was the telephone. Men called him " a crank who says he 
can talk through a wire." but by 1890 his invention was 
in common use. 

The Dynamo. — Inventors in England and other European 
countries, and also in the United States, working at the same 
time, found out how to make electricity on a large scale and 
cheaply. The machine invented for this purpose was called 
a dynamo. Though first made about 1866, it did not come 
into ordinary use in the United States until after 1880. The 
dynamo is commonly driven by a steam or gasoline engine 
or by a water wheel. The electricity which it makes can be 
carried a long distance by means of wires. Other inventors 



434 NEW METHODS OF WORKING 

discovered many uses for the electricity which the dynamo 
produces. Some learned how to use the current to run 
machinery. This is done by means of a motor. 

In 1878 Charles F. Brush invented the arc light for streets 
and parks, while Thomas A. Edison, in the following year, 
made an electric light for houses. In the meantime, a Ger- 
man in Berlin, Dr. Siemens, had constructed a street railway 
car run by an electric motor. All these inventions worked 
great changes in the cities. Street cars, which had at first 
been drawn by horses, were soon moved by electricity. A 
line in Baltimore and another in Richmond in 1885 were the 
first in the United States to make the change. By 1895 f° w 
horse cars were left in the United States. This change within 
the cities from 1885 to 1895 was followed by the building of 
electric railways from town to town. Such lines, bringing 
the town and country within easy reach of each other, made 
country life pleasantcr and helped the towns and cities to 
obtain food from the neighboring farms and to carry on trade 
with one another. Several of the older railroads have begun 
to use electric instead of steam locomotives. 

The most wonderful use for electricity was yet to come. 
Scientific men had long known that electricity travels through 
space without the necessity of following a wire, like waves 
on the surface of the water. In 1896 Marconi, an Italian 
electrician, invented an instrument for telegraphing without 
wires. The method was rapidly improved until messages 
could be sent across the Atlantic Ocean and from ship to ship 
in mid-ocean. The wireless telegraph, invented in Europe, 
was almost at once adopted in the United States. 

Within a few years after the invention of the dynamo, the 
motor, and the electric light, many private companies went 
into the business of making electric current and selling it for 
lighting and for running machinery. Some electric plants 
use coal for fuel, but others depend on water power. In 
1902 great machines were built to use a part of the water of 
Niagara River above the Falls. The electric current is 
carried on wires to Buffalo, 22 miles away, and even to cities 



STEEL 



435 



much farther off. In these it is used to light streets and 
buildings, run factories, and move street cars. Rivers are 
made to do work which would require thousands of horses. 
The nineteenth century was the age of steam, but the twen- 
tieth century is becoming the age of electricity. 

Steel. — The need of a material stronger and more durable 
than iron led to the invention of steel. In 1856 Henry 
Bessemer, an Englishman, discovered 
a cheap method — since called the 
Bessemer method — of converting 
ordinary iron into steel. Bessemer's 
method, as well as other new meth- 
ods, was introduced into the United 
States. By 1890 the Americans 
equaled, if they did not sur- 
pass, other nations in making 
iron and steel. Steel was 
soon used for finer grades 
of tools and delicate surgi- 
cal instruments. Steamships 
were built of it, and were 
made larger as the builders 
learned to use the new ma- 
terials. The modern steam- 
ship framed with steel beams 
and covered with sheets of 
steel is capable of carrying two 
or three thousand passengers 
and many car-loads of freight 
across the Atlantic in five or six days. The huge buildings 
called " sky-scrapers " are steel-framed. The parts of such 
structures are made in a mill, ready to be put together. 
Since the introduction of steel the railroads have been 
entirely rebuilt at great cost. The rails of the track, many 
of the bridges, even many of the cars, are made of steel. 

How Iron is obtained. — Great improvements have also 
taken place in mining ore, in carrying it to the mills, and in 




A Modern "Sky-Scraper" 

Woolworth Building, New York; the 
tallest building in the world. This has 
a steel frame 



436 



NEW METHODS OF WokKINC 



manufacturing iron. Formerly most of the iron ore came 
fnnn Pennsylvania, but now three-fourths come from the 
mountain ranges about Lake Superior. Much is also mined 
in Alabama. In Michigan and Minnesota powerful steam 
shovels load the soft iron ore upon railway cars. Railroads 
take it to lake ports and dump it into great bins, high above 
the water-level. Chutes lead the ore into the holds of steel 
steamboats five or six hundred feet long, and capable of car- 
rying five or six thousand tons at once. These great carriers 
take the ore to ports chiefly on the south shore of lakes Erie 
and Michigan, near where it is wanted. Huge unloading 
machines operated by steam or electricity lift the ore from 







Loading Iron Ore on a Boat on Lake Superior 

the boats to railroad cars in which it goes to the iron mills. 
At every step it is handled by machinery, and the human 
hand need not touch it or do more than direct the machines 
which perform the work. 

In order to separate the iron in the ore from other mate- 
rials, iron ore, coke, and limestone are poured by iron buckets 
into a blast furnace, and a running stream of liquid iron conies 
out and is east into what is called pig iron. The pig iron 
is then made into cast iron, wrought iron, or into some kind 
of steel. Machines pull the steel into rods and wire, or roll 
it into bars and sheets. These in turn are made into tools, 
machinery, and building material. 

In 1876 iron was chiefly manufactured in the neighborhood 
of Pittsburgh. After the ore was obtained principally from 



NEW USES FOR IRON AND STEEL 



437 



the Northwest, other cities became rivals of Pittsburgh. 
Steel mills must be located where they can bring their coal 
and iron ore together cheaply and at places from which the 
finished articles can be forwarded to the best markets. For 
this reason many steel mills have been built along the south 
shore of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, with Cleveland and 
Chicago as the centers. 

New Uses for Iron and Steel. — Inventions have never 
been made so fast as since the Civil War. Man has seemed 
determined to find 
machines for all 
his work. Some 
were borrowed from 
Europeans, others 
were invented by 
Americans, some 
are merely im- 
provements of 
older inventions, 
othersintroduce en- 
tirely new methods 
of work. Many 
old tools like the 

blacksmith's hammer and the wood-worker's chisel and the 
laborer's shovel were enlarged and driven by steam or 
electricity. These great hammers, lathes, and steam shovels 
are able to do the work of scores of men working in the 
old manner. Saws and planes and chisels which cut stone 
and iron as easily as wood have come into use. Machines 
have been built for cutting coal in mines, digging ditches, 
and laying railroad tracks. 

Other machines make wire, tacks, bolts, screws, nails, and 
pins. One of them takes thin wire, cuts it into short lengths, 
puts a head on the pieces, sharpens these at the other end, and 
sticks them into papers — a paper of pins ready for the market. 

The machinery for making paper and for printing news- 
papers and books is still more remarkable. Paper was 




Unloading Iron Ore 



43« 



NEW METHODS OF WORKING 



formerly made entirely from cotton and linen rags. The 
demand for a cheaper paper led to the discovery of a new- 
method of manufacturing it. Soft poplar, pine, or spruce 
logs are ground into a pulp, dried, and rolled into sheets. 
The modern printing-press prints, folds, and even counts 
the finished newspapers at the rate of 20,000 an hour. With 
another ingenious machine, called the linotype, or " linc-o'- 
type," a printer can set a line of type almost as easily as 
one can write the words with a typewriter. 




A Bessemer Converter of Iron into Steel 



A list of the new machines would be very long. None 
are more remarkable than the cash registers and calculating 
machines which add, subtract, multiply, and divide, or the 
phonographs, stercopticons, and moving-picture machines. 

Gas and Petroleum. — Gas made from coal had long been 
used in American towns for lighting houses and streets. 
Natural gas obtained, like petroleum, from deep wells came 
into common use about 1872. Pipe lines were built , through 
which the gas could be carried to the large cities, sometimes 
150 or 200 miles away. Gas from Pennsylvania, West Vir- 
ginia, Ohio, and Indiana helped the cities to build up manu- 
factures, for it was a cheap fuel. The more recent discovery 
of natural gas in southeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma 
has started a new manufacturing center. 

The uses of petroleum have been multiplied. Raw petro- 



THE AUTOMOBILE AND THE AEROPLANE 



439 



leum is used for fuel in many steamships, and also in loco- 
motives, especially in California. The kerosene lamp was 
invented during the Civil War, and the gasoline stove soon 
afterwards. The principal use of gasoline is in a new form 
of engine. About the time of the Philadelphia Centennial 
the first successful gas-engine was constructed in Europe. 
The explosion of a mixture of gas and air drove a piston 
which in turn moved the wheels. Scores of inventors had 
been working on the idea for more 
than a century. The new engine 
proved popular. It had several 
advantages over the steam-engine ; 
it was, first of all, simpler to run 
and [lighter in weight. The gas 
could be made from alcohol as 
well as gasoline. 

• The Automobile, 1886. — About 
ten years after the invention of 
the gas-engine and while engine- 
builders were perfecting it, other 
inventors found new uses for the 
machine. The gas-engine was used 
to run carriages and wagons first in 
Europe, thus producing the automobile. The manufac- 
turers of every country quickly adopted this ingenious idea, 
and improved upon the original cars. Workmen and in- 
ventors of every country rivaled one another in efforts to 
produce the best. The gas-engine is also rapidly being used 
to drive farm machinery. Goods which men once carried 
to market on their backs, and which later oxen or horses 
hauled, steam, gas, or electric cars now take more swiftly 
and more cheaply. 

The Aeroplane. — For centuries scientists dreamed of an 
invention by which man could travel through the air like a 
bird in flight. Balloons were made in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, but they, like the sailing vessel, were at the mercy of 
every wind. European inventors were quick to apply the 




A Wright Aeroplane 



44Q 



NEW METHODS OF WORKING 



light gas-engine to the balloon, changing its shape so that it 
would be more manageable. The lightness of the gas-engine 
made possible what seems the most marvelous invention 
of all. In 1905 the Wright Brothers, after patient trials, 
made a successful aeroplane or flying-machine. 

Expositions. — Several times since the Centennial Expo- 
sition other expositions have been held, which gave the 
people opportunities to sec what rapid progress was being 
made, not only by Americans but also by all nations. The 
World's Fair or Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 
was intended partly to celebrate the 400th anniversary of 





1' '*"■- ^■ 3 '>«*' 






Court of Honor, Columbian Exposition 



the discovery of America. Eleven years later an exposition 
at St. Louis commemorated the 100th anniversary of the pur- 
chase of Louisiana, and the following year one at Portland, 
Oregon, commemorated the expedition of Lewis and Clark 
to the mouth of the Columbia River. 

" Big Business " or Trusts. — The methods of managing 
business and manufacturing have changed almost as much 
as the methods of work. The men engaged in the railroad 
business were the first to begin the change. It did not seem 
necessary that passengers or freight, going from New York to 
Boston, or from New York to Buffalo, or from Philadelphia 
to Chicago, should be carried over half a dozen short rail- 
road lines, one ending where another began. Successful 
managers, like " Commodore " Vanderbilt, sought to unite 



CITIES KNOWN FOR SPECIAL THINGS 441 

the roads running in the same direction or through the same 
district. This had been begun before the Civil War, but it 
was pushed forward more rapidly afterward, until the rail- 
roads of the country were united into several enormous 
systems, which spread over the United States like huge nets. 

Other business men followed the example of the railroad 
managers. They reached out from the city where they 
worked and purchased similar factories in other cities. Often 
they did not buy these rival factories, but formed with their 
owners various kinds of agreements which have been com- 
monly called " trusts." The competition or rivalry of many 
men or groups of men trying to sell the same thing formerly 
kept prices down. When the great railroad systems con- 
trolled the freight business of a region, or when the " trusts " 
made all or nearly all of one kind of goods, they were free to 
fix prices as they pleased. The formers of the trusts claimed 
that their purpose was to introduce more economical methods 
of conducting business. They made such enormous for- 
tunes, however, by the new method that the benefits seemed 
to the people to be all on the side of the railroads and trusts. 
The people differ greatly as to how the government should 
meet this new question. The formation of trusts has been 
especially successful in such trades as iron, steel, tobacco, 
petroleum, meat, sugar, cotton, and leather. 

Cities known for Special Things. — As a result of the 
growth of manufacturing, certain cities became noted for 
producing a particular article. For example, Troy, New 
York, became known for collars and cuffs ; Baltimore for 
canning oysters ; Gloverville, New York, for gloves ; Phila- 
delphia for carpets ; Bridgeport and Waterbury, Connecticut, 
for brassware. In some towns nearly all the workmen are 
engaged in a single occupation. In South Omaha they are 
occupied with meat packing ; in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, 
with iron and steel ; in East Liverpool, Ohio, with pottery ; 
in Fall River, Massachusetts, with cotton goods ; and in 
Brockton, Massachusetts, with boots and shoes. Some 
places profited more than others by the new methods of 



442 NEW METHODS OF WORKING 

manufacture. The South is being entirely changed through 
their introduction 

Questions 

1. What household industries have recently been moved to the 
factory ? What changes have occurred in the old factories ? Why 
can an eastern factory located a long way from the materials which it 
needs remain prosperous ? What changes in the location of factories 
are noticeable since the Civil War ? 

2. What new use has been found for the telegraph? What im- 
provement has been made in it ? 

3. Who invented the telephone? What did people think of it at 
first? 

4. How is electricity now made ? When did the dynamo come into 
use in the United States ? What uses have been found for the electric 
current produced by the dynamo? What is the motor? When was 
the first electric railway system introduced into the United States? 

5. Who invented the wireless telegraph ? 

6. Describe one new way of making steel. Mention new uses for 
steel. 

7. Describe the process of obtaining iron ore, shipping it, handling 
it, and making it into various kinds of iron. Where is the iron obtained ? 
Where is it manufactured into iron, steel, tools, and machinery ? 

8. What tools and machines have recently been invented? How 
is each used ? How is cheaper paper now made ? How is type now set ? 

9. When did natural gas come into use? How did its discovery 
affect the work of the regions where it was found ? 

10. What uses have been found for petroleum? What is the 
principal use for gasoline? Describe the gas-engine. 

1 1 . What change has taken place in the management of railroads 
and factories ? What is a "trust " ? Name some of the more successful 
ones. 

12. What cities are famous for some special kind of manufacturing ? 

Exercises 

1. Write a paper on the changes which have taken place in the work 
of the household. See pages 101-104, 215-217, 259-262. 

2. Visit some local factory, telephone system, electric light or power 
plant, or street railway system, and write a paper about its history. 

3. Draw a map of the township showing the telephone lines, electric 
light and power lines, interurban car lines, and give the dates of con- 
struction of each. 

4. What changes have taken place in the method of heating American 
houses? See pages 98-99, 329. 



CHAPTER XLI 



THE NEW SOUTH 

Southern Farmer. — As the plantation system broke 
down, the planters generally moved into the cities. Some 
had the courage to start anew in another business. Their 
sons became the business men, the lawyers, and the physi- 
cians of the community. The plantations were divided into 
small farms, and either sold or rented to the freedmen or to 
farmers who 
before the war 
had been too 
poor to own 
slaves. These 



white 
with 
farms 
cotton 



men 
small 
found 
grow- 




Harvesting Alfalfa in Virginia 



ing profitable for the first time. They were no longer obliged 
to compete with the owners of large plantations using gangs 
of slaves. As they prospered they rented or purchased 
more land. They also bought the newly invented machines, 
cotton-seed planters and stalk cutters. They now raise about 
half the cotton, the other half being raised- by the negroes. 
The southern cotton crop is three-fourths of all the cotton 
raised in the world. 

Renewing the Land. — For a long time the southern 
farmer had trouble with the soil. Much of the land was 
worn out because crops had been raised from it without any 
attempt to preserve its richness by the use of fertilizers. 
Fortunately, great beds of phosphate rocks were discovered 
in South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. These rocks were 
ground up and made into a valuable fertilizer, which was 

443 



THE NEW SOUTH 

scattered over the fields. The farmers also learned how 
to rotate their crops, so that the soil was rapidly improved. 

The consequence has been that land once regarded as 
worthless has again come into use. Farmers who had gone 
to the West to obtain fresh land began to return to the old 
homesteads. The cotton growers were not the only ones 
who profited by the new way of enriching the soil. All kinds 
of farming were improved by it. Innumerable truck gardens 
and fruit farms were started. The Atlantic coast from Mary- 
land to Florida has almost no winter. Five or six crops of 
vegetables may be grown on the same soil during a single 
season. The South has, therefore, become the garden where 




Harvesting Rice in Louisiana 

the early fruits and vegetables of the whole country east of 
the Rocky Mountains are raised. 

Rice Farming in the Southwest. — Rice was formerly 
grown only on lowlands which were flooded by the overflow 
of the rivers at certain times in the year. Recently the 
farmers of the Southwest, in Louisiana and Texas, have 
learned to drain the lowlands, and then to irrigate the fields 
by pumping water over them, in order to grow rice. They 
have in this way become independent of floods and do not 
fear drought. They use drills, harvesters, and steam threshers 
similar to those on he wheat farms of the Northwest. 

Utilizing the Treasures Underground. — In this period 
southerners learned that the oil, gas, coal, and iron fields of 
the Appalachian Mountains, first discovered in Pennsylvania 
and West Virginia, extended into the South as far as the 



MINES AND MANUFACTURES 



445 



mountains ran. A little later they found that the coal, oil, 
and gas fields of Missouri and Kansas also extended through 
Oklahoma into Texas. 

The people of northern Alabama had long known that 
there was plenty of red iron ore in the neighborhood. On 
the old plantations they had used it as a dye-stuff. " Dye- 
dirt " they called it. The Indians had used it before them. 
After the Civil War a geologist explored the region and 
reported that 



there was a 
mountain of 
this ore twen- 
ty-five miles 
long. A rail- 
road was built 
to the place. 
In the same 
region a coal 
field larger in 
area than the 
entire state of 







Southern Cotton Mill 



Massachusetts was discovered. An abundance of limestone, 
used in making iron, was also found near by. Nature had 
thus marked northern Alabama as a center for iron manu- 
facture. In 187 1 a town was founded in the heart of the new 
region and named Birmingham, after the great English 
manufacturing city. The Alabama village has now become 
a great city with all kinds of manufactures. Other cities 
like Chattanooga and Knoxville, in eastern Tennessee, have 
also become iron manufacturing centers. 

Cotton Mills. — Midway between the regions where cotton 
is grown and coal is mined, mills for the manufacture of 
cotton cloth have recently been built. It was cheaper to 
haul the coal down the mountains than to carry the cotton 
all the way to the coal. Therefore at such points as Char- 
lotte, Columbia, and Atlanta cotton mills have been built. 
In 1876 the South manufactured scarcely any cotton goods, 



44 6 THE NEW SOUTH 

or anything else. Now it produces about one half of the 
cotton manufactures of the United States. South Carolina, 
once a poor state, with no other wealth than its plantations 
or farms, now has not only better farms but ranks second 
among the states in the products of its cotton mills. 

Other Manufactures. — One thing led to another. Enter- 
prising men established mills to make oil and meal out of the 
seed of the cotton, which had formerly been wasted. The 
cultivation of peanuts and their preparation for the market 
has become an important industry in Virginia and North 
Carolina. Cotton-seed oil and peanut oil have many uses 
similar to the olive oil of Europe and California. It is one 
of the marvels of nature that the seed of the cotton shrub 
and of the peanut vine produce an oil like that of the olive. 

The Appalachian Mountains are covered with valuable 
forests. Some of the largest logging camps and most modern 
saw-mills in the world have been recently established to 
make use of them. Factories for making furniture have also 
been built in the timber region. In 1892 High Point in North 
Carolina was a village unknown beyond the bounds of its own 
county. It is now, next to Grand Rapids in Michigan, the 
greatest center of furniture making in the United States ; 
and other southern cities are close to it. These factories, 
mills, and shops at the South are using the same machines 
that are used in the North. Steam shovels scoop up the 
iron ore from the surface around Birmingham. Electric 
and pneumatic machines cut the coal loose in the coal 
mines. 

Water Power. — The southern towns have begun to utilize 
water power to make electricity for lighting and for running 
machinery. No other part of the United States is better 
situated for such purposes. The swift-flowing rivers, falling 
from the mountains to the plains, to the east, the south, 
and the west of the Appalachian system, offer many sites 
suited to manufacturing. And the materials needed — 
lumber, iron, and cotton — are close by. There is enough 
water power within 60 miles of Charlotte, North Carolina, 



SOME GREAT WORKS AT THE SOUTH 



447 



to do the work which would require the labor of millions of 
men working day and night. 

Some Great Works at the South. — The southern people 
have carried out some enterprises as great as any in modern 
times. Galveston was orginally built on low ground and 
was often flooded by high water when storms raged on the 
Gulf of Mexico. In 1902 the city began a great sea-wall. 
It has not only finished this, but has raised the level of the 
entire city from eight to seventeen feet, putting an end to the 
danger from floods. New Orleans has drained and diked and 
filled in, until it, too, is safe. Sewerage and drainage have 
banished malaria, yellow fever, and cholera, which were the 




The First Train over the Key West Railroad 

scourges of the old South. Florida, since 1906, has been 
draining the Everglades. When this work is finished an area 
three times as large as Connecticut will be opened to settle- 
ment for small fruit and truck farms. One writer has esti- 
mated that if the swamps along the Atlantic coast from New- 
Jersey to Florida were drained, like similar lowlands in Hol- 
land, 10,000,000 people might find homes on them. It is in 
such places that the United States must find part of its fu- 
ture land for settlement. 

The Key West Railroad. — Since the Civil War the South 
has also been building many new railroads. The Florida 
East Coast railroad has recently finished a line from Miami 
to Key West. To do this, it was necessary to bridge the 
sea from islet to islet with great stone arches. The new 



448 THE NEW SOUTH 

railroad, 155 miles long, carries trains to within 90 miles of 
Havana. 

How this Change affects the People. — The change in the 
work of the South since 1876 is much like that in the North 
after the War of 181 2. The negroes and the poorer white 
farmers no longer make their sugar, candles, and soap, and 
spin and weave and dye their own clothing, as they often did 
for some years after the Civil War. The negroes are not now 
the skilled laborers — the carpenters, the masons, and the 
blacksmiths of the South, as in the days of the great slave 
plantations. The white men from the hill country of the 
Appalachians are taking over these trades. They are also 
going into the factories and shops. The old class of poor 
white people is fast disappearing. Varied work and freedom 
from competition with slaves have given them the opportu- 
nity they needed. Their little cabins are giving way to three- 
room or four-room houses. Their sons no longer move west- 
ward as they did in Lincoln's boyhood, but they find the 
" promised land " about them in the mines, the forest, the 
factories, and the new farms. " Captains of big mills " now 
take the place of the former slave-holders. 

Free Schools. — The New South has meant more than 
making better use of land, forests, mines, and water power. 
After the Civil War the southern people began earnestly to 
build up a free public school system. The states had few 
schools and those mostly private. The population of the 
South was scattered widely, which made the task of providing 
for education difficult. The southerners also wished to edu- 
cate white children and negro children in separate schools. 
The cost of the schools was, moreover, a heavy burden, be- 
cause the South was impoverished by the war. Northern 
men have helped with generous gifts of money. The south- 
ern states have elementary and high schools, colleges, uni- 
versities, agricultural and industrial schools. 

Special industrial schools are provided which train the 
negroes to be farmers, workmen, and the teachers of their 
own race. The most famous are at Hampton, Virginia, and 



THE NEW SOUTH 449 

Tuskegee, Alabama. Booker T. Washington, who became 
one of the leaders of the southern negroes, and the head of 
Tuskegee Institute, said that in 1865 barely three out of one 
hundred grown negroes could read and write, but that in 19 10 
seventy could do so. 

The New South. — The old southern cities have removed 
the scars of the great war. In 1865 Richmond had lost 
700 houses, but it rose rapidly from its ruins. In 1907 the 
South held a great fair on the shore of Hampton Roads, 
near Norfolk, to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary 
of the settlement at Jamestown. Every southern state had 
its own building. In the buildings devoted to industry and 
agriculture the exhibits showed the progress of the South 
since the fair at Philadelphia in 1876. 

Questions 

1 . What became of the planter class ? Who profited from the break- 
ing down of the plantation system ? 

2. How was much southern land brought back into cultivation? 
What changes have taken place in southern farming ? 

3. What underground treasures have recently been found in the 
South ? For what is Birmingham noted ? 

4. Why were the cotton mills built at such places as Charlotte, 
Columbia, and Atlanta? What other manufactures have been estab- 
lished ? 

5. Why is the South fortunately situated for manufactures ? 

6. What great works have recently been completed ? Are there still 
any opportunities for settlers in the South ? 

7. Who are the skilled workers of the South? What changes in 
work are taking place? What is the South doing for the education of 
its workers ? 

Exercises 

1. Those who live in the states where slavery and the plantation 
system existed before the Civil War should find stories to illustrate the 
changes which have taken place in the South. For example, the story 
of some old plantation cr the history of some factory or mill. 

2. Those who live in the North, east of the Rocky Mountains, should 
find out which food products in the local market are- grown in the 
South. Which of the manufactures are made in the South? 



CHAPTER XLII 



THE LAST BARRIERS 

The Indians become Citizens. — Ever since Jamestown 
was founded the Indian had been crowded back from one 
hunting ground to another. His last hunting grounds were 
called " reservations," and for many years the government 
kept the white settlers out. Finally, the friends of the 
Indian concluded that it was better for him to give up his 




"Hg&OTfgi ~ 



Waiting on the Frontier ok Oklahoma 

tribal customs, receive his share of the tribal reservation, and 
become a citizen. After the last Indian Wars were over, 
Congress passed a bill giving to each Indian family 160 
acres, and permitting the sale of the remainder of the land 
of the reservations, on the understanding that the money 
should go to the Indians. The first great reservation to be 
broken up was Indian Territory, a part of which was bought 
by the government and opened to ordinary settlers. 

Oklahoma. — The part of Indian Territory thrown open 
was called Oklahoma, or the " Beautiful Land." Thousands 
of persons were eager to occupy the best sites for towns or 
the best farming lands. The scene on the border, as the 
time approached when the territory should be declared open, 
was very different from what happened during the earlier 

450 



THE WEST AND NORTHWEST 451 

settlement of the West. Troops were obliged to keep the 
land seekers back so that none should gain an unfair advan- 
tage. At a signal exactly at mid-day, the waiting crowd 
began a mad race for the best lands. On foot or on horse- 
back or in wagons, old men and young men, and many women, 
rushed in to stake out homesteads or town lots. Guthrie 
was an open field at noon time. At night 10,000 people 
were encamped there, and the inhabitants had already be- 
gun to form a town government. Wherever an Indian reser- 
vation was broken up, the same wild scramble for land oc- 
curred. Oklahoma grew with wonderful rapidity. In 1907 
it was united with Indian Territory and admitted to the 
Union. Meanwhile the population, which in 1889 was barely 




-j 77 
A Town in Oklahoma Two Days after Settlement began 

200,000, mostly Indians, increased to more than one and a 
half million. Oklahoma is now larger in population than 
several of the original thirteen states. It is little more than 
twenty years old ; they are nearly three hundred years old. 
Its white population has been drawn chiefly from its neigh- 
bors, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. 

Arizona and New Mexico have grown more slowly. They 
became states in 191 2. They filled the last gap in a solid tier 
of states extending along the southern boundary from Texas 
to California. The union of thirteen states in 1789 has be- 
come a union of forty-eight. 

The Call of the Canadian Northwest. — As the fertile lands 
of the West were filled, land seekers turned to the Canadian 
Northwest. Farmers and clerks and laborers moved to this, 
the newest frontier. Canada, like the United States, founded 
the new provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta 



452 THE LAST BARRIERS 

on the great western prairies, and thus bridged over the gap 
between Ontario and British Columbia. In 1886 the Cana- 
dian Pacific Railroad was completed to the Pacific Ocean. 
Two other great railroad systems tapped various places in 
the Canadian West — the Canadian Northern and the Grand 
Trunk. The Canadians have recently taken a place beside 
the people of the United States in producing wheat, gold, and 
silver for other parts of the world. Immigrants from Eng- 
land, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, as well as from 
the United States, are rapidly making use of its vast prairies, 
forests, and mines. The climate no longer seems to check 
the tide of migration toward the Arctic Ocean and Hudson 
Bay. 

Alaska. — In 1896 gold was discovered 2,000 miles up the 
Yukon River, near the Alaskan boundary. The greater dis- 
coveries were on the Canadian side, but discoveries at sev- 
eral places in Alaska caused a rush to the gold fields like that 
to California in 1849. In a short time the population of 
Alaska was more than doubled. Within five years Americans 
took out of Alaska $132,500,000 in gold, nearly twenty times 
the original cost of the territory. Nor is gold the only thing 
of value there. It has been estimated that there are forests 
fit for marketing with an area larger than either the state of 
Maine or South Carolina ; two or three hundred square 
miles of coal beds, varying from two feet to twenty feet in 
thickness ; farm and grazing lands equal in extent to the 
combined area of Illinois and Indiana. Even if much of the 
pioneer work within the United States proper is completed, 
there is still work for Americans in the great territory in the 
farthest Northwest. 

The people of the Pacific coast have long profited by the 
Alaskan trade. Cities like Tacoma and Seattle have grown 
rich and strong from it. Tacoma was a village of 1,100 in 
1880, in 1920 it was a city of nearly 97,000. Seattle had 3,500 
inhabitants in 1880 and 315,000 in 1920. 

Building the Nation on the Pacific Side. — In the days of 
the Spaniards cattle formed the chief wealth of California. 



FRUIT RAISING AND MINING 



453 



After the inhabitants recovered from the excitement over the 
discovery of gold in 1848, wheat took the place of cattle. 
Grass, gold, and grain were the chief means of gaining wealth 
in each of three periods. In 1876 California and Oregon were 
noted for their great fields of wheat. Farm machinery and 
the railroads made this possible. About 1885 a new industry 
was begun along the Pacific coast. California, Oregon, and 
Washington became famous for their fruit farms, and today 
well-tilled orchards and vineyards cover the land. For a 
while wheat proved a more profitable crop than gold, but 




Picking Oranges in California 

fruit is now more profitable than either. The Sacramento 
Valley in California and the " Spokane Prairie " region in 
Washington are still given chiefly to wheat growing. Here 
combined harvesters and threshers enter the fields of standing 
wheat and when they leave the grain is piled in sacks. In 
the Pacific Northwest — Oregon and Washington — a few 
great steam-driven saw-mills with improved machinery do 
the work that was formerly done by a multitude of small 
saw-mills built by the sides of streams. The Pacific states 
have other resources. Multitudes are drawn to them by the 
mild, sunny climate and beautiful scenery. 

The earliest settlers occupied lands on the coast, and in 
the adjacent valleys. The late comers settled farther east. 



454 



THE LAST HARRIERS 




SNW&fi f^wBwwi 



-JCvi-, i !<55? ,& ' r ' 



Arid Land before Irrigation 



and the frontier line moved steadily eastward toward the 
Cascade Mountains and the desert barriers. Some grazing 
land and irrigated patches exist along the eastern border of 
each of the Pacific states, but most of the region still in- 
cludes vast stretches of undeveloped land. 

Mining Camps in the West. — Long after the great dis- 
coveries of gold and silver in California, Colorado, and 

Nevada, these, 
as well as many 
other metals, 
were found 
elsewhere in 
the mountain 
region. Pros- 
pectors, pio- 
neers with an- 
other name, 
searched ev- 
erywhere for 
minerals. The 
settlement of 
Idaho, Mon- 
tana, and Wy- 
oming began 
in the mining 
camps. 

Such camps 

were wretched villages — a general store, a saloon, and a 
row of rude one-story huts on a winding street in a moun- 
tain valley, usually remote from a railroad and the outside 
world. They were lonely and desolate when the gold 
seekers were away, but all excitement if they returned suc- 
cessful. It was a hard life and few men succeeded. Young 
men made up most of the inhabitants, and they usually left 
when the first wild gold-fever passed. The fortunate few 
remained to work in the mines. Some who went to mine 
stayed to trade and farm. Numberless mining camps be- 




The Same Land after Irrigation 



IRRIGATION 



455 



came thriving villages and cities. Railroads were built to 
them. The printing-press, the church, the school, and the 
library came in time. Then real pioneers took the place of 
the rough, boisterous prospectors. 

Conquering the Last Barrier. — Great progress has been 
made in overcoming another barrier to settlement in the 
mountain plateau of the West. Millions of acres of land in 
Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and other states are 
fit only for grazing unless water is carried to them. In some 




The Roosevelt Dam 
On Salt River, Arizona, the dam is 284 feet high and 1080 feet long 

places farmers dug artesian wells or tapped a mountain stream 
to obtain water for the fields. States also built canals to 
convey water. Such work is called irrigation. The Mor- 
mons of Utah were the pioneers of the United States in turn- 
ing a part of the water in the mountain streams toward the 
farm lands. Since 1902 the United States has been helping 
the mountain states. Great lakes have been made by dam- 
ming up rivers. Canals distribute the water thus stored 
when wanted in the valleys below. The money obtained 
for the public lands and the water privileges is again put into 
new irrigation works. The land in small lots is almost 



456 THE LAST BARRIERS 

given to the settler. The water is sold to him at cost. Great 
reservoirs between the mountains are being rapidly formed. 
The dams are built as solid as the brick and stone work of 
the Romans. 

The mammoth Roosevelt dam, on Salt River in Arizona, 
supplies water for thousands of farms. Another on the Rio 
Grande forms a lake forty miles long and from one to ten 
miles wide. New Mexico alone, which Coronado declared 
worthless, will soon have an area of irrigated lands equal 
to the entire states of Delaware and Rhode Island. 

An irrigated farm is different from others. The owner 
controls the supply of water and hastens or delays the plant- 
ing or ripening of his crop at will. The soil is deep and rich. 
The endless sunshine and mild climate make every season a 
harvest season of some kind. The high dams supply water 
power, making electricity for the towns, the mines, and 
the farms. All the comforts of the city arc found. Men are 
learning to accomplish the marvel of making the American 
deserts bring forth bountiful harvests. Writers of geog- 
raphy no longer write the words " the Great American 
Desert " across the Far West. The government of the United 
States already looks forward to the time when 20,000,000 
people will live on these farms created in the desert. 

To make sure of a plentiful supply of water it is necessary 
to care for the forests which clothe the slopes of the moun- 
tains. If they are cut down, the streams will be dry most of 
the year, while at other times they will rush down, swollen 
far beyond their banks, and sweep everything before them. 
For this reason the national government began in 1891 to set 
apart millions of acres of public forest land, placing the trees 
under the care of foresters, men who have studied how to 
protect trees. The foresters also plant new trees where 
these are needed. 

Questions 

1 How had the United States dealt with the Indians in the past? 
What plan was finally adopted ? What was done with the land com- 
posing the Indian reservations? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 457 

2. Why was Oklahoma settled so rapidly? Who formed the main 
body of settlers in Oklahoma? What two states were formed in 1912 ? 
How many states now compose the Union? 

3. What progress did the westward movement in Canada make in 
this period ? Who were the settlers ? 

4. What valuable resources have been discovered in Alaska ? What 
cities have profited from the Alaskan trade ? 

5. What changes have taken place in California since the days of 
the Spaniards? What are the main occupations of the people on the 
Pacific coast? 

6. Who were the pioneers in the western mountains ? Describe a 
mining camp. 

7. How is the last western barrier to settlement being overcome? 
Describe an irrigation system. 

8. What is the work of the national foresters ? 

Exercises 

1 . Compare the ideas of Alaska in 1 867 with those held at the present 
day. See page 407. 

2. Review the Spanish settlement of California. See pages 193-194. 

3. Why was the settlement of the Pacific coast states really an 
eastward instead of a westward movement ? 

4. What two barriers to settlement, finally removed, are discussed 
in this chapter ? 

Important Date : 

1902. The United States begins building irrigation works in the 
Far West, and thus opens a new frontier to settlement. 



CHAPTER XLIII 
LABORERS OF A GREAT NATION 

Growth of Cities. — The change in the methods of work 
led to the rapid growth of cities. The development of great 
railroad systems had a similar effect. The centers from 
which they branched out in many directions served as mar- 
kets from which products of all sorts came to be forwarded 
to the smaller towns and villages of whole regions. Some 
of the cities were also ports on lake or sea. These grew with 
rapidity. From them goods could be carried by steamships 
the cheapest method, to other ports of the United States or 
to Europe, South America, Asia, or Africa. 

For many years after the Republic was founded, the great 
majority of the people lived in the country on farms. This 
is still true in the South and some parts of the West, but 
with the growth of new methods of work a great change 
came over the older states. Here a majority of the people 
now lived in the cities. One-tenth of the entire population 
of the United States by 1920 dwelt in the cities of New York, 
Chicago, and Philadelphia. About one-fourth lived by the 
same time in cities with a population of 100,000 or more. 

The Newest Immigrants. — The immigrants after the 
Civil War usually settled in the cities while formerly they 
settled on farm lands near the frontier. The great demand 
for laborers in the cities attracted them. Indeed, the rapid 
growth of manufacturing would have been impossible with- 
out the help of newcomers from Europe. Many immigrants 
also went to the principal mining regions. 

The number of immigrants each year increased very 
rapidly after 1880, and continued at a high rate until 1914. 
It was more than half a million a year, and some years 
more than a million. The total population in the United 
States in 1790 was a little less than four million people. 

458 



THE NEWEST IMMIGRANTS 



459 



There came a time when as many people entered the United 
States every four years. More came in a single year than in 
the entire period from the founding of Jamestown to the 
outbreak of the Revolution. Enough immigrants arrived in 
1907 to people a state as large as Connecticut or Nebraska. 

Immigrants from Eastern Europe. — Before 1880 four- 
fifths of the immigrants came from the British Isles and 
northwestern Europe. Then the immigrants from those 
regions decreased, while others from southern and eastern 
Europe greatly 
increased. In 
1882 the en- 
trance of Chi- 
nese laborers 
was forbidden ; 
in 1907, by a 
treaty with Ja- 
pan, this rule 
was extended 
to Japanese la- 
borers. As a 
result few of 
either of these 

races could enter the United States. It was the Italians, 
Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, Magyars, Poles, 
Bohemians, and Lithuanians who sought work in the United 
States in the largest numbers. They left homes on the 
coasts of the Mediterranean and in the valleys of the 
Danube and the Volga. They were mostly rugged peasants. 
In their new homes they took a place largely as miners, 
steel workers, and day laborers about the cities. To them 
America became as much the Land of Promise as it had 
been at an earlier period to the Puritan, the Scotch, the 
Irish, and the Germans. 

Many of the immigrants came from regions where the 
ancient Greeks and Romans once lived and where ruins of 
their great and beautiful buildings still remain. They 




Village of the Region from which the 
Later Immigrants came 



460 



LABORERS OF A GREAT NATION 



all seem to love painting, scuplture, and music. Some of 
them have become leaders in orchestras and musical societies. 
Like the Germans and French, the Slavs, the Greeks, and the 
Italians have helped in spreading the love of music and other 
arts in the United States. 

The Crowded Tenements. — Both the immigrants and the 
native Americans who moved to the factory districts of the 
cities were obliged to change their former mode of life. It 
was necessary for them to settle near the places where they 
worked, often in crowded, smoky, dismal spots. Cheap 




r 1 



1 \ 9 'Hh 



Where the Immigrants go to live in the United States 
The greater number of the foreign-born live in congested quarters 
in the large cities 

tenement houses were built for them. The laborer's place 
of work was commonly more grimy and cheerless still. In 
the mines and mills his work was done often amid great 
dangers from explosions of gases or from unguarded ma- 
chinery. 

Organization of the Laborers. — As the business of manu- 
facturing or managing railroads was gradually organized in 
great corporations or " trusts," so laborers of all sorts were 
organized. Small trade societies or unions had been com- 
mon for many years. When prices rose during the Civil War, 
the laborers united in order to attempt to raise wages. Be- 
sides, the growth of manufactures, bringing together in the 
same industry, often in the same town, large bodies of 



THE PROBLEM OF THE LABORERS 461 

laborers, made the formation of unions easier. The printers, 
the locomotive engineers, the cigar makers, the bricklayers, 
and the carpenters were among the first to form large organ- 
izations of all workers in the United States. Others rapidly 
followed their example. 

On Thanksgiving Day, 1869, a group of garment cutters in 
Philadelphia started a plan to unite all laborers into one body 
without regard to their particular kind of work. A powerful 
organization, called the Knights of Labor, grew from these 
small beginnings. A few years later, in 188 1, another combi- 
nation was formed, called the American Federation of Labor. 
It united as many as possible of the labor unions of the United 
States and Canada into one body. Joined by a multitude of 
local city unions, state and national federations, and special 
organizations, it finally outnumbered the Knights of Labor. 
In addition to such organizations, the workers in many 
industries are separately combined in unions, like the Brother- 
hood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railway Con- 
ductors, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and of 
Railway Trainmen. 

Objects of the Laborers' Unions. — The laborers have 
united to advance their own interests. This usually means 
to better their surroundings while working, secure higher 
wages, and shorten the hours of work. Many of their de- 
mands appeared so reasonable that they were supported by 
other people in the community. Wise railroad managers, 
manufacturers, and business men generally became eager to 
improve the situation. The result is that the conditions 
under which work is done have changed for the better. For 
example, the hours of work a hundred years ago were from 
" sunrise to sunset." In the early factories employees 
worked fourteen or fifteen hours, part of the time by candle- 
light. About 1840 some trades reduced the hours to ten. In 
many trades the hours are now eight or nine. The average 
length of the working day for all is only a little over nine. 

Memorable Strikes. — Formerly when the laborers were 
discontented with the wages or conditions of their work, they 



462 LABORERS OF A GREAT XATION 

could go to the frontier and take up land. As the public 
lands gave out, laborers turned more and more to another 
way of bettering wages and shortening hours. This was by 
the strike. The men in a single factory or mill or railroad 
stopped work. Sometimes they were able to induce the 
workers in other occupations to join them. Since 1877 
hundreds of strikes have occurred in the United States every 
year. Some of them have brought on battles between the 
laborers and the employers. 

In 1877 a railroad reduced the wages of its men. It had 
done so several times. On this occasion the employees aban- 
doned their trains, and tried to prevent others from running 
them. The strike spread to other railroads, and soon covered 
many of the railroads in fourteen states. At several places 
conflicts occurred between the strikers and the soldiers sent 
by the state to keep order. Twenty-two were killed in one of 
these battles. Pittsburgh suffered the most in the destruc- 
tion of cars, depots, and freight, and in the loss of life. The 
city barely escaped a terrible fire during the struggle between 
the angry forces. This was the first great strike in American 
history. 

An even greater strike broke out in June, 1894, in the Pull- 
man Car Company's shops in Chicago. The company had 
reduced the wages unjustly, as the laborers felt. They 
had other grievances against the company. For one thing, 
the Pullman Company was the landlord, owning all the 
houses of the town in which the laborers lived. The people 
disliked being both tenants and employees of the same com- 
pany. The strike which followed was long. The company 
steadily refused to arbitrate its differences with the men. 
Efforts were made to boycott all railroads using Pullman cars. 
The strike spread. The railroad men joined the strikers. 
The western Knights of Labor also struck, out of sympathy 
with the Pullman employees. Business almost came to a 
standstill as far west as the Rocky Mountains. President 
Cleveland sent United States soldiers to Chicago with orders 
to stop the interference with the railroads, partly because the 



INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 463 

trains carried the mails. Another reason was that the strike 
interfered with the welfare of people in no way interested in 
the original strike. 

The federal courts aided the President by issuing " blanket 
injunctions." By these all men were warned not to inter- 
fere with the railroads. Those who disobeyed were arrested, 
taken before a judge, and were tried by him, without the right 
to have the testimony heard by a jury as in ordinary cases. 
The loss of property was immense. If the value of the 
property destroyed and the loss of profits and wages be added, 
the amount would be about $80,000,000. Although few 
strikes have been as destructive, the total losses from them 
each year are very large. 

Employers' Associations. — The organization of strong 
labor unions led to the formation of employers' associations 
to resist the demands of the employees. Local manufacturers 
have, like their employees, formed local unions or associations. 
Owners in the same business have formed great national 
employers' associations. In 1875 the United States potters 
formed an association. A few years later the stove manu- 
facturers united into the Stove Founders' National Defence 
Association. Many others have been formed. In 1893, a 
National Association of Manufacturers was organized, which, 
like the Knights of Labor, included men from different parts 
of the country. In 1903 appeared the Citizens' Industrial 
Association. National, district, and local employers' associa- 
tions united to form this, as different labor organizations 
united to form the American Federation of Labor. One 
object of unions of employers has been to make " collective" 
bargains about wages with all the employees in their partic- 
ular industry. If the employees in the trade should strike, 
all the employers would stand together in the struggle. 

Industrial Democracy. — Fortunately, it is becoming 
more and more common to lay the demands of the employees 
and the claims of their employers before industrial assem- 
blies or " Boards of Arbitration " or " Boards of Concilia- 
tion." When this is done, each side agrees to accept the 



464 LABORERS OF A GREAT NATION 

decision of the board. In 1920 Congress provided a means 
of settlement of differences between railroad managers and 
laborers. Regional and national boards made up of repre- 
sentatives of both groups and of the public decide the issue. 
An Industrial Conference appointed by President Wilson 
recommended the same general plan for other industrial 
organizations. Some industries like the Cleveland Gar- 
ment Makers voluntarily adopted a complete plan of indus- 
trial cooperation between managers and workers. Accord- 
ing to such plans employers and employees appoint repre- 
sentatives to assemblies variously called " shop councils " 
or " shop committees " that meet regularly to deal with 
their common interests and prevent the growth of misunder- 
standing. When the assemblies fail to prevent serious dif- 
ferences which threaten a strike by the laborers or a lockout 
by the managers they may refer their differences to regional 
or national industrial boards as referees. The fact that 
representatives of the public sit with representatives of 
laborers and managers upon these boards gives the people 
a share, as it has an interest, in the settlement. 

Many hope that these forms of industrial cooperation 
between workers and managers will restore the better rela- 
tions which existed when factories and shops were small but 
which have been lost in the larger organizations since the 
Civil War. The representation of workers on shop com- 
mittees and councils chosen by secret ballot should introduce 
into business some of the advantages of political democracy. 
It is a way of bringing about a kind of industrial democracy. 

Factory Conditions. — Such assemblies sometimes pro- 
vide for the health and comfort of all workers in the factories 
instead of leaving the question entirely to the managers. 
Employers and employees unite to make the mills and shops 
fit and safe places for work. In recent years great progress 
has been made in arranging methods of preventing accidents. 
Sometimes the machinery is so covered that workmen can- 
not be caught in it ; sometimes electric devices arc introduced 
for stopping machinery quickly in case of an accident. Some 



COOPERATION IN WORK 465 

industries go much further and provide night schools, 
kindergartens, and nurseries. Others have established amuse- 
ment parks and public baths, and have built model factories. 
Sometimes the idea is simply that men will work better if 
they are comfortable, and that the profits of the business and 
the wages will be increased. But the more far-sighted leaders 
in industry are moved more by a desire to increase the oppor- 
tunities for self -development of the people who work. State 
laws by providing systems of insurance and compensation for 
accidents have lessened the burden on the laborers in danger- 
ous pursuits. Under such laws fixed sums are paid to the la- 
borers or their heirs for injuries received while on duty. 







ii g 



=w^l^'^r*v^ T ''*~'~ 3'"''- ' '' " ." ' - f f--"i'-" ~ [•■■' '~ J - "'■" " -7 v 1 - v ;' : ' : * : ^ ''^t~ ; : T--% AT-VI 



The Immigrant Station at Ellis Island in New York Harbor 

The cost of the system of Workmen's Compensation is then 
added to the cost of manufacture. 

Cooperation in Work. — Employees and employers have 
not been the only classes to work together for their own good. 
In many parts of the United States the farmers or fruit 
growers have united to sell their products. In 1867 an 
organization called the Patrons of Husbandry was formed to 
make farming a pleasanter and more profitable occupation. 
It was commonly called the Granger movement, from the 
grange or local society. Local, district, state, and national 
organizations were formed similar to the labor unions. An- 
other organization of farmers, started a few years later, grew 
about 1887 into the National Farmers' Alliance. These 
organizations have formed cooperative stores, creameries, 
elevators, and warehouses. They have done a great work 



466 LABORERS OF A GREAT NATION 

in teaching the farmers how to help themselves and in bring- 
ing them together for their social welfare. Some of the 
organizations have established libraries, reading courses, 
lyceums, and local institutes or clubs for the study of ques- 
tions in which they are especially interested. In such ways 
they have taken part in the educational movement of the 
time. 

Questions 

i. Why did cities grow rapidly in this period? Where did the 
majority of the people in the older states live ? 

2. Where did the immigrants usually settle? From what parts of 
Europe did they come? What classes of laborers were excluded? 
With what kind of work did the immigrants generally start in the 
United States? What valuable taste did they bring to America? 

3. Why did so many people go to dismal tenements in crowded parts 
of cities ? 

4. Why did the laborers form unions? Describe the larger organ- 
izations which the laborers have formed. 

5. What change has taken place in the length of the working day? 
What did laborers formerly do when discontented with their wages or 
conditions of work? What have they done in recent years? Tell the 
story of a strike. 

6. What method has been used frequently to settle differences be- 
tween the laborers and employers without striking ? 

7. What step have the employers taken to combat the demands of 
the labor unions? Name some of the Employers' Associations which 
have been formed. 

8. Describe a form of industrial cooperation. 

9. In what work mentioned in the text have people begun to 
cooperate or unite either for buying or selling? 

Exercises 

1. Members of the class should gather information from their 
parents or friends wherever possible on (1) the wages in Europe when 
they left, (2) wages they found paid in the United States, and (3) the 
change which took place in the work of each in moving from Europe 
to the United States. 

2. Is anything done in the local factories or mills that may be called 
"industrial cooperation" or "industrial democracy"? 

3. Has your state a Workmen's Compensation System? 

4. Describe any case of cooperation either in buying or selling of 
which the members of the class know. Were the results successful? 



CHAPTER XLIV 
THE NEW EDUCATION 

The Schools since 1876. — The last forty or fifty years 
have seen as great changes in the schools as in manufacturing, 
and in methods of government. Not only has the number of 
pupils steadily increased, until in 1920 it numbered over 
twenty million, but new kinds of schools have been added. 
Much of the new work prepares the pupils directly for what 
they expect to do after they leave school. The improvement 
in managing schools and in teaching the ordinary subjects, 
reading, arithmetic, and geography, has also been important. 

Graded Schools. — The early schools were ungraded, as 
many rural schools still are. Each teacher kept the same 
pupils from the time they began their A B C's until they left 
school. The division of the schools of cities and larger towns 
into grades was made before the Civil War. In recent years 
the plan has been extended to the rural schools. A large 
township school often takes the place of several district 
schools. In such cases wagons are provided to carry the 
children to and from school. The school year has also been 
lengthened. Some cities keep their schools open throughout 
the year, except for short vacations. Pupils may begin sub- 
jects in the middle, as well as at the beginning, of the year. 
By this plan those who are kept away for a time by illness 
lose only a few months instead of a whole year. 

High Schools. — Many public high schools and private 
academies had been established before the Civil War, but 
from 1870 to 1900 the number of high schools increased 
rapidly. By the end of that period every town or city and 
many rural districts had high schools. These high schools 
do for their communities much that the early American col- 
leges did for the first groups of settlements. 

467 



468 THE .\i:\V EDUCATION 

New Subjects. — The chief task of the graded school is 
still to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. 
Every year the number of persons in the United States who 
cannot read and write is decreasing. In 19 10 it was only 
seven or eight in every hundred, and only three in each 
hundred of those born in the United States. This record was 
not as good as several European countries. 

In the upper grades the pupils learn more about history 
and government than did their fathers. In history they 
study more about the way people lived, about industry and 
trade, and less about war. Another important subject, 
called hygiene, teaches the pupil how to keep the body 
healthy. In many schools the boys are taught to work in 
wood, and the girls to cook and to sew. Some schools have 
gardens in which the pupils may learn to raise vegetables 
for the use of their families. These changes have led parents 
to make a greater effort to keep their children in school. 
Several states have passed laws forbidding children to leave 
school until they have reached a certain grade and are fifteen 
or sixteen years of age. 

Changes in High Schools. — The first high schools, espe- 
cially in the eastern states, existed chiefly to prepare boys for 
college. Latin, Greek, and mathematics were the principal 
subjects. The American people soon concluded that such 
schools could educate only a few of the boys and girls, because 
only a few went to college. Before i860 the Boston English 
High School had added many other subjects, including book- 
keeping and surveying. Later, the high schools began to 
group their students in " courses." Those who intended to 
go to college were put into one group and called " classical " 
students. Within the last fifteen or twenty years still greater 
changes have taken place. Separate high schools have been 
founded with the aim of teaching their students what they 
need to know in the work for which they are preparing. The 
Manual Training or Technical High Schools train boys for 
work in wood and iron, for drafting, designing, and other 
tasks. They prepare girls for designing, sewing, and cooking. 



HIGH SCHOOLS 



469 



After finishing the course of study most of the students begin 
work at once, while others go to higher technical schools to 
obtain greater knowledge and skill. The Commerical High 
Schools prepare boys and girls for the practical work of 
business. In communities where no such separate high 
schools exist, the newer subjects are taught in the ordinary 
high schools. In some states agriculture is now taught in 
the high schools or in special schools. 

A change has also come in the organization of many high 
schools. The first year of the high school has been com- 
bined with the last two years of the elementary school 









A Technical High School which runs Evenings 

and the new group called the Junior High School. The 
remaining three years of the high school make up the Senior 
High School. 

Agricultural High Schools. — Agricultural high schools 
teach their pupils how to manage a farm, to grow fruit, to 
care for animals, and to conduct a dairy. They also teach 
many of the subjects taught in other high schools. In some 
of these schools, especially in Wisconsin, the teachers not only 
teach the boys and girls who attend but they also aid farmers 
of the region in planning their buildings and drainage, in 
testing seeds and soils, in selecting animals and trees, and they 
assist the housewives in arranging their kitchens and drains, 



470 THE NEW EDUCATION 

and in preparing and testing food. Each high school has its 
libraries, shops, laboratories, and workrooms. Indeed the 
new aim is to make the rural high schools model school-farms, 
and those in the cities model school-shops and factories. 
The study of books is retained so that the students may- 
understand the world about them as well as be fitted to do 
some useful work in it. 

Colleges and Universities. — The growth of colleges and 
universities has been as rapid as that of common schools and 
high schools. Wise and generous men have given large sums 
to the older colleges, in order that they may do more work. 
Other men have founded new colleges and universities. The 
gifts of one man founded Johns Hopkins University, in Balti- 
more, in 1876 ; of another Leland Stanford University, at 
Palo Alto, California, in 1891 ; of still another re-founded 
Chicago University in 1892. Other generous men have 
established special institutions in which highly trained men 
and women endeavor to discover ways of preventing disease 
or to find methods by which the people may do their work 
better. 1 

The states west of the Alleghenies, as well as a few of the 
older states, have placed a university at the top of their plan 
of public education. They thus offer free education not only 
to the child in the early grades of the common school and 
in the high school but also to the young man and woman in 
the state university. 

As soon as the Northwest Territory was opened for settle- 
ment, the national government began to give land for the 
founding of colleges and universities. During the Civil War 
it made a still more liberal offer, promising each state many 
thousand acres, the amount in proportion to its population. 
The money obtained from the sale of the lands was used to 
pay for teaching agriculture and other technical or practical 
arts. Some states founded separate agricultural or technical 
colleges, others gave the new work to their universities. 

1 For example, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 
New York City and the Carnegie Institution in Washington. 



HIGHER EDUCATION 



47* 



Massachusetts divided the income from its share between an 
Agricultural College at Amherst and an Institute of Tech- 
nology at Boston. New York, partly by use of the land grant, 
partly by the use of its ordinary income, and partly by gifts 
of citizens like Ezra Cornell, built up a great state university 
at Ithaca, called Cornell University. 

In 1887 the United States again came to the aid of higher 
education, giving each state $15,000 a year for the improve- 
ment of agriculture. This money is used to maintain experi- 
mental or practice farms and dairies and laboratories for the 




Experiment Station Farm 
United States Department of Agriculture 

study of problems connected with agriculture. Farming is 
becoming less a mixture of drudgery and chance and more 
a skilled occupation like medicine and law. 

Higher Education for All. — The colleges in the colonies 
were established mainly to educate young men who expected 
to become Christian ministers. The graduates of these col- 
leges also became lawyers and physicians. For a long time 
few went to college or the university except those who in- 
tended to enter such professions or to become writers and 
teachers. With the founding of technical or engineering 
colleges a change came, especially within twenty or thirty 
years. Now the young man or woman, whether he or she 
is going into one of the older professions or into industry, 
or business, or is to manage a farm, may find in some depart- 



472 



THE NEW EDUCATION 



ment of the best universities training for each kind of work. 
The students not only use books, but they work in shops and 
laboratories upon tasks similar to those for which they are 
preparing. The states have also established normal schools 
in which teachers are trained for the public schools. 

Many states are attempting to carry opportunities for 
higher education to the people in their homes. The Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin, for example, has more students working 
under its guidance while living at home than it has regular 

~rmr 




ml ^UJ-^W 









4 







The Neighborhood using the School Building 



students at Madison. The University offers courses to the 
people by correspondence, or in classes in selected towns of the 
state. Teachers from the University guide the students in 
practice work, assist them in their studies, and help them by 
lectures on difficult subjects. In such ways the universities 
are working for the whole people more than formerly. They 
still carry on studies and experiments in order to broaden 
knowledge ; they now do much more to spread among all the 
people information about every new discovery or invention. 
Finally, by sending their teachers throughout the state, they 
help officials, the voters, business men, and all workers to 
solve their problems or do their work to better advantage. 



LARGER USE OF SCHOOLHOUSES 



473 



Schoolhouses as Social Centers. — Some cities and states 
have begun to make larger use of their schoolhouses. The 
schools are supplied with books and magazines and news- 
papers in order to provide a reading room for old as well as 
young, or with a traveling library sent from the state or city 
library. Club rooms, gymnasiums, bath rooms, and play- 
grounds provide other means of recreation for the people of 
the neighborhood. This plan makes the schoolhouse a peo- 
ple's club and an educational center. 

Parks and Playgrounds. — In this period, also, many cit- 
izens have learned that it is not enough to provide schools 




A Chicago Playground 

where boys and girls may remain a few hours of the day for 
most of the year. They have concluded that the cities 
should provide parks and playgrounds where the young 
people may enjoy healthful games after school hours instead 
of loafing about the street corners or running risks by playing 
in the streets . Such playgrounds are not mere open fields , but 
in grounds suitable for games, under the care of some one who 
understands how interesting games are played. Chicago set 
a good example to other cities by providing a playground in 
Washington Park in 1 8 7 6 . Twenty years passed before much 
more was done there or in other cities. Then Chicago ap- 
pointed a commission whose business it was to establish play- 
grounds in parts of the city so crowded with buildings that 



474 THE NEW EDUCATION 

little open space for play remained. Other cities took up the 
work. In 19 10 more than a third of the cities of the United 
States had such playgrounds. 

These playgrounds are for men and women as well as 
children. Near the grounds a large house has often been 
built, suitable for neighborhood parties, for picnics, or for 
dances. Park and house together are called " recreation 
centers." By means of them thousands of people have 
gained for the first time an opportunity for wholesome play. 
Five million persons used the recreation centers of Chicago 
in one year. 

Continuation Schools. — The interest of the American 
people in education has steadily gained headway. We have 
seen in the preceding chapter that factories often maintain 
libraries and special schools for their workers. In nearly 
every large city the Young Men's Christian Association and 
the Young Women's Christian Association have opened 
schools for those who have not had an opportunity to attend 
the regular public or private schools. Two men, Lewis 
Miller and John H. Vincent, came to the conclusion that 
education begun in schools and colleges ought to be con- 
tinued through life. To make this plan possible they started 
in 1874 Chautauqua Assemblies where people could go for 
several weeks' study under the best teachers. But the edu- 
cational plan did not stop with serious courses of study. 
Unusual opportunities for recreation were offered, and 
popular lectures for those who wished to be listeners only. 
Beginning on a small scale at Chautauqua Lake, New York, 
the movement has spread until now there are five or six 
hundred such local assemblies or schools every summer in 
the United States and Canada. Some of them like the Cham- 
plain Assembly, a Catholic Summer School, at Plattsburg, 
New York, and the Jewish Chautauqua at Atlantic City, 
New Jersey, are quite as important as the original organiza- 
tion at Chautauqua. 

Education through Newspapers, Magazines, and Books. — 
After all, school days for young and old are soon over. News- 



NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, AND BOOKS 475 

papers, magazines, and books then become the teachers of all. 
Since the Civil War the editors of some of the great news- 
papers and magazines have become more than ever leaders 
of thought. It is on the side of up-to-date news, accurate, 
and interesting, that the newspapers have made the chief 
progress. The magazines have become, like the newspapers, 
mirrors of life about them. Another improvement which 
makes both the newspapers and the magazines more interest- 
ing is the use now made of pictures and cartoons. The 
most famous cartoonist of this period was Thomas Nast, 
whose drawings published in Harper's Weekly did much to 
overthrow the Tweed Ring. 1 

But good books are the best teachers of the grown people, 
and good books as a result of the wonderful public libraries 
have become available to all for the asking. The task of 
helping Americans to know the country in which they lived, 
begun by Cooper and Irving, Hawthorne and Longfellow, 
was carried forward after the Civil War. Many authors of 
their day were still writing. In 1866 Whittier, who before the 
Civil War was chiefly interested in attacking the evils of 
slavery, wrote Snow Bound, describing scenes familiar to 
Americans born on the farm. Besides those who still wrote 
of the East others found subjects in the regions of the United 
States that had attracted little attention before the Civil 
War. Edward Eggleston described the life of the pioneers 
in the Old Northwest in the Hoosier Schoolmaster, and the 
Circuit Rider. In poems like The Old Swimmin' Hole and 
When the Frost is on the Punkin James Whitcomb Riley, 
of Indiana, recalled pleasant memories of other days to all 
readers. George W. Cable seized upon the time when 
Spaniards and French occupied New Orleans, and made 
their customs the subject of Old Creole Days and other 
stories. Joel Chandler Harris and Thomas Nelson Page 
made the traits of the southern negroes and the vanishing 
plantation life the subject of many stories. Samuel L. 
Clemens, who took the name Mark Twain, found equally 
1 See cartoon on page 491. 



476 THE NEW EDUCATION 

interesting subjects in the country of his boyhood along the 
Mississippi River. Where is the boy who has not read Tom 
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn/ What Mark Twain did 
for steamboat days on the Mississippi Bret Ilarte did for 
early California days in such stories as Luck of Roaring 
Camp. Thoreau aroused interest in out-of-door life in New 
England, while John Muir and other writers called attention 
to the Rockies and the Sierras. Francis Parkman chose the 
forests about the Great Lakes as the scene of a scries of 
histories which told of the adventures of French and English 
among the Indians, and of the struggle for the Mississippi 
Valley and for Canada. In a novel which he called The 
Rise of Silas Lapham William Dean Howells described the 
typical self-made American at the end of the nineteenth 
century. These are but a few of the books which have 
made the period since the Civil War notable in American 
history. 

Questions 

1. What changes have taken place in the town and rural schools 
since 1876? In the high schools? 

2. What new subjects are taught in the schools? In the high 
schools ? What special kinds of high schools have been built ? 

3. Describe the work of the agricultural and technical high schools. 

4. How did the colleges and universities secure money to extend 
their work ? What has the United States done to help higher education ? 
What have the states done? 

5. For what were the colleges in the colonies established? For 
what reason do people now go to college ? 

6. How do the universities now attempt to broaden their usefulness ? 

7. Where may people who have missed an opportunity to secure an 
advanced education go to study? 

8. Who are the authors who have made the period since the Civil 
War notable in American history? What did they write? 

Exercises 

1. Locate the colleges and universities of the state. How are such 
schools supported ? What kind of education does each offer ? 

2. Find examples of work done by neighboring colleges or universities 
similar to that done by the University of Wisconsin. 

3. Visit some school center and city playground and describe its work. 



CHAPTER XLV 
THE REPUBLIC AND THE LARGER WORLD 

Struggle for Colonies. — The United States for more than 
a century found plenty of lands to be colonized in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, the Far West, and on the Pacific Coast. Few 
Americans desired to conquer colonies beyond the seas. 
Meanwhile other nations had again become rivals in the 
struggle for colonial territories. The English, ever since the 
Revolutionary War had deprived them of the best part of 
their colonial possessions, had been busy adding one new 
colony to another. Their colonial empire had become world- 
wide, and they could boast that upon it the " sun never sets." 
The French, who had lost the Mississippi and St. Lawrence 
valleys in 1763, had also been building up a new colonial 
empire, this time in northern Africa and southeastern Asia. 
Since 1884 the Germans had been establishing colonies in 
Africa, on the coast of China, and in the Pacific islands. In 
1898 the United States followed such examples, taking posses- 
sion of several colonies after a war with Spain. 

The Spanish War, 1898. — President McKinley, early in 
his administration, was obliged to decide how the United 
States should act in a war which had broken out between the 
Cubans and the Spaniards. Spain had ruled over Cuba since 
the time of Columbus. The Cubans, like the Mexicans and 
South Americans long before, were trying to put an end to 
Spanish rule and to found an independent republic. The 
war had been raging two or three years and the island was 
being laid waste. Stories of the cruelty of Spanish generals 
and of the sufferings of the Cubans aroused the sympathy of 
the American people. Some Americans had property in 
Cuba worth,' all told, nearly $50,000,000, and they were 
anxious to have the war stopped. 

477 



478 THE REPUBLIC AND THE LARGER WORLD 



The Destruction of the " Maine." — It had already be- 
come hard to keep the peace between Spain and the United 
States, so strongly did many Americans urge their govern- 
ment to compel Spain to satisfy the Cubans. The Spaniards, 
on their side, were enraged at the assistance that Americans 
privately gave the Cubans. In February, 1898, the Ameri- 
can battleship Maine, at anchor in the harbor of Havana, 
was blown up, causing the death of two officers and 258 sea- 
men. Most Americans believed t'hat the Spaniards had 
destroyed the ship and clamored for war against them. 
McKinley reluctantly yielded and war was declared. 




71 

Manila and the PASIG River 
Showing the Magellan monument and the stone bridge connecting the walled 
city with Binondo 

The War. — The conflict with Spain was brief, lasting only 
from April to August. The Spaniards, who had spent their 
resources in a vain effort to conquer Cuba, were imprepared 
for a longer war. On May 1 , Commodore George Dewey, with 
a small fleet, easily destroyed a much inferior Spanish fleet 
in Manila harbor. Spain sent to Cuban waters a squadron 
under Admiral Cervera, but it was soon shut up in the harbor 
of Santiago by a larger American force under the command 
of Admiral Sampson. In order to make the capture of the 
Spanish ships in Santiago sure, an army of about 16,000 
men, commanded by Major-General Shafter, was transported 
from Port Tampa, Florida, and landed on the coast near 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 



479 



Santiago. 1 Finally, on July 3, the Spanish fleet made a 
heroic effort to escape through the United States fleet sta- 
tioned before the entrance to the harbor. After a running 
fight the Spanish vessels were destroyed. Santiago soon sur- 
rendered. Another American army under General Nelson A. 
Miles overran Porto Rico. A third, with some help from the 
natives, captured the city of Manila, in the Philippines, com- 
pleting the task that Commodore Dewey had undertaken. 
About this time the war came to an end. 




"The Cross-Roads oj t-he Pacific" 

Spain's Loss of Colonies. — In the treaty with Spain, 
Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands were ceded to 
the United States. Spain in return received $20,000,000. 
Cuba was given its independence. Spain thus lost the last 
remnant of her once vast colonial empire in the New World. 
Her influence, nevertheless, remained. The people of the 
countries of South America, except Brazil, of Central America, 

1 One cavalry troop, called the "Rough Riders," under the command 
of Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, 
was composed principally of western cowboys, Indians, football players, 
and adventurers. The doings of this regiment excited much interest 
throughout the war. 



4 8o 



THE REP1 BLIC AND THK LARGER WORLD 



Mexico, and several of the West Indies were still largely 
Spanish. 

The New Territories of the United States. — In the midst 
of the Spanish War Congress annexed the Hawaiian Islands, 
with the assent of a majority of the inhabitants. These 
islands are half-way stations to Japan, China, and the 
Philippine Islands. Any nation which controlled them would 
possess excellent harbors for its navy and would increase its 
power in the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiians had first been 
taught the ways of civilization by American missionaries. 
Manv Americans had settled in the islands. Under their 



T^^ffSt 




Senate and Legislative Buildings, Honolulu, Hawaii 

lead a few years before an attempt had been made to over- 
throw the native rulers and add the islands to the United 
States. President Cleveland, however, had refused to sup- 
port this plan of annexation. In the islands, at the present 
time, besides the Hawaiians and the Americans, there are 
many Japanese and Chinese-. 

In the Philippines there are more than 3,000 islands. 
Luzon, the largest, is about the size of Ohio. More than 
7,000,000 people inhabit the archipelago, varying from the 
highly civilized Spaniards and Filipinos, to the rudest savage 
tribes. The islands are only half explored and the natural 
resources almost untouched. 

When Commodore Dewey attacked the Spanish fleet in 



SOLVING NEW PROBLEMS 481 

Manila Bay, the natives were already trying to overthrow 
Spanish rule. They welcomed the Americans, whose forces 
made certain the defeat of the Spaniards. Many of them 
were angry when they discovered that they had simply 
changed masters, and they attacked the American army. 
This new war lasted about three years. As soon as possible 
after its close the Americans gave the natives a share in the 
government of the islands. Americans are divided upon the 
question whether the Filipinos should be made independent 
or should remain under American control. 

Solving New Problems. — In the newly-gained territories 
of the United States and in Cuba natives and Americans have 






Camp Lazear 
Where the experiments with the yellow-fever mosquito were made. The 
transmission of the disease by a particular kind of mosquito was proved 

worked well together. Much has been done to make the 
islands more healthful. Major Walter Reed, an army sur- 
geon, discovered that malaria and yellow fever are carried 
by mosquitoes. He concluded that if the mosquitoes were 
destroyed, these diseases would die out. This was one of 
the world's most important discoveries. Yellow fever, which 
had long been the scourge of all tropical countries, and 
especially of the West Indies and the southern cities of the 
United States, was conquered. 

Besides helping Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines to 
conquer disease, and besides building roads and harbors, the 
United States has tried to establish its free school system 
among them. More than a thousand American school teachers 
have been sent to the Philippines. 




482 



THE REPUBLIC AND THE LAROKR WORLD 



A C I F I C 



A N 



The Panama Canal. — The most interesting story of work 
done in a tropical climate is that of the Panama Canal. Be- 
fore the war 
with Spain be- 
gan, the battle- 
ship Oregon was 
stationed on the 
Pacific Coast. 
As it was needed 
in the West 
Indies for the 
coming struggle 
with the Span- 
ish fleet, it 
was ordered to 
steam at full 
speed around 
South America, 
a distance of 
13,000 miles. 
The people of 
the United 
States waited 
anxiously for 
the news that 
it had reached 
the other ships 
in the West 
Indies. They 
saw that many 
days would be 
the Isthmus of 




A T LAN TI C O CEAN 



Relief Map of the Panama Canal 



saved if there 
Panama. 1 



were a canal through 



1 There were other reasons which made the people wish to have a 
canal. For example, an "all-water" highway from the Pacific Coast 
to the Atlantic would enable shippers to send their goods from one 
coast to the other at less cost than by the railroads. 



THE PANAMA CANAL 



483 



For centuries men had dreamed of such a canal. They 
thought that they could cut the passageway which Columbus 
had tried in vain to discover. In 1536 the king of Spain 
formed a plan for a ship canal near the Chagres River. A 
French company started in 1881 to build one, but became 
bankrupt before the work was half finished, seven years later. 1 




*""*—• — . __ > 2lYv ■■^* re " e of Magellan 



Routes Passing Through the Panama Canal 



Comparative Distances 



[via Magellan 
From New York < via Panama 
I Difference 



To San 
Francisco 

13,135 
5,262 

7,873 



Ortt Mdb <""»< Callao ™£" 

13,566 12,852 9,613 8,380 

9,798 10,392 3,363 4,633 

3,768 2,460 6,250 3,747 



[via Magellan 13,502 13,933 I3,4 2 5 9,98o 8,747 

From Liverpool ^ to Panama 7,836 12,372 12,966 5,937 7,207 

[Difference - 5,666 1,661 459 4,043 1,540 

The Builders of the Canal. — President Roosevelt and his 
Secretary of State, John Hay, next took up the task on be- 
half of the United States. They bought the rights of the 

1 The French Company spent $260,000,000 in its efforts to build a 
canal. 



484 THE REPUBLIC AND THE LARGER WORLD 

French Company, and entered into an agreement with the 
little republic of Panama by which a strip or zone ten miles 
wide was secured. 1 Medical officers, of whom Colonel 
Gorgas was the chief, made the region a safe place in which 
to live, as they had learned to do in Cuba and the island 
possessions of the United States. An army officer, Colonel 
Goethals, was given general charge of the task. Digging the 
passageway through the hilly part was begun in 1906, where 
the French had left off many years before. A dam on the 
Chagres River, besides furnishing the water for part of the 
canal, made a waterfall from which dynamos produce suffi- 
cient electricity to furnish power and light throughout the 
canal. The first boats passed through the completed canal 
in 1914, though the formal opening was celebrated in 1915 
with an Exposition at San Francisco. Vessels now pass 
through the canal in 10 or 12 hours, while the voyage around 
South America would take from 30 to 45 days. The canal 
brings the coasts of the United States closer together, and is 
also rapidly becoming a highway of trade for all the world. 
Keeping Order in the West Indies. — The Spanish War 
and the Panama Canal also revived the interest of the Ameri- 
can people in the picturesque islands of the West Indies. 
Some of them have been the scene of almost perpetual civil 
war for more than a century. They were bankrupt states, 
unable to pay their debts to those who had lent them money. 
European powers threatened to take them in hand. The 
government of the United States regarded such interference 
as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. First with Santo 
Domingo and later with Haiti President Roosevelt and Presi- 
dent Wilson worked ou1 a plan of protection and assistance. 
It was an arrangement by which the United States protects 
the republics which occupy the old Spanish island of His- 
panola from civil strife and foreign invasion, and assists 
them in the administration of their finances. In 19 16 a 

1 The United States paid the French Company $40,000,000, and to 
Panama $10,000,000, and promised the latter also an additional yearly 
payment or rental of $250,000 beginning in 1913. 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 485 

similar agreement was made with the republic of Nicaragua. 
In the treaty with Nicaragua the United States also secured 
the exclusive privilege of building another canal, and the 
right to use the Corn Islands and a port upon the Gulf of 
Fonseca as naval bases. To provide another convenient 
supply station for ships upon the new trade routes the 
United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark 
in 191 7 at a cost of $25,000,000. 

Questions 

1. Where did England, France, and Germany obtain colonies in 
the nineteenth century ? When did the United States obtain colonies 
beyond the seas ? How did the United States obtain its colonies ? 

2. Why did the people of the United States want to stop the war in 
Cuba? What reason had the Spaniards for becoming enraged at the 
people of the United States ? What was the effect of the destruction of 
the Maine ? 

3. What happened during the brief war with Spain ? What colonies 
did Spain lose by the war ? In what ways did Spanish influence remain 
in the New World ? 

4. What colony had the United States obtained during the war with 
Spain ? What people live in this colony ? Why did the United States 
have a war with the Filipinos ? 

5. What was the discovery of Major Walter Reed ? What has the 
United States done for its colonies ? 

6. Why did the people of the United States desire a Panama Canal ? 
Who had tried to build one? What did the medical officers of the 
United States do to aid in the work ? 

7. In what West Indies or Central American countries is the United 
States now engaged in keeping order? 

Exercises 

1. Learn as much as possible about the resources, geography, and 
people of the colonies. 

2. What nations should the Panama Canal benefit by shortening 
the routes of trade? See map, page 483, with the chief distances 
by the old routes as well as by the new routes made possible by the 
canal. 

Important Date : 

v 1898. War with Spain and the annexation of Porto Rico, the 
Philippines, and Hawaii. 



CHAPTER XLVI 
NEW METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

President McKinley. — During President McKinley's 
first administration, as we have seen, the money question was 
decided by making gold the standard. The tariff was also 
revised once more, and the rates increased. The principal 
tasks of the President and Congress, however, came from 
the Spanish War and the introduction of new forms of gov- 
ernment into the territories which, till 1898, had been colonies 
of Spain. 

In 1900 President McKinley was again elected by large 
majorities. He had hardly begun his second term when he 
was assassinated. For the third time in the history of the 
United States a President had been murdered. In this 
case the assassin was an anarchist. The Vice-President, 
Theodore Roosevelt, became McKinley's successor. 

Theodore Roosevelt. — The deep interest President Roose- 
velt took in the Panama Canal and in the irrigation works 
of the Far West has already been described. There were 
other, perhaps greater, problems which he tried to solve. 
They grew out of the organization of gigantic corporations 
or trusts to manage railroads, mines, petroleum wells, and 
manufactures, especially those of iron, steel, and oil. 

In 1902 the miners of eastern Pennsylvania engaged in 
digging anthracite coal struck for higher wages and better 
conditions of work. They belonged to a union known as the 
United Mine Workers. The coal companies who employed 
them were also bound together by agreements. Certain of 
these companies were the railroads who carried coal to 
mills or to cities. It seemed as if the struggle might last 
a long time. Already the people of the large eastern cities 
were suffering for lack of fuel. To prevent still greater harm 
the President insisted that both employers and employees 

486 



THE PRESIDENT AS A LEADER 



487 



should submit their disputes to arbitration. At first the 
mining companies refused to listen. They finally yielded 
and the struggle was settled in a spirit of fairness to every- 
body. This was the first illustration of what Roosevelt 
meant by the " square deal." 

The President as a Leader. — The coal strike proved that 
the President must become more than ever the representa- 
tive of the common interest. Many had begun to feel that 
the ordinary man and woman 
had little chance to be heard 
at Washington and that the 
laws were made for the benefit 
of powerful corporations or to 
satisfy the demands of labor 
unions with thousands of 
members. President Roosevelt 




Theodore Roosevelt 



believed in what he called 
" big business " and in labor 
organizations, but he attacked 
" false labor leaders " and 
" malefactors of great wealth." 
By these phrases he meant 
men who acted as if the selfish 
interest of their own group 
was superior to the welfare of the community. The en- 
thusiasm and energy which he put into this campaign gave 
multitudes of people greater confidence in the wisdom and 
strength of the government. 

New Departments and New Laws. — What was better 
than fine words, the President recommended to Congress 
the creation of a Department of Labor and Commerce, 
whose chief should be a member of the Cabinet. Its task 
was to study the problems of the new industrial order and to 
suggest wise solutions. A few years later a Department 
of Labor was added to take over part of the work, securing 
for the laborers of the nation a representative in the Presi- 
dent's Cabinet. 



4 88 



NEW METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 



Another law increased the powers of the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission. It could now fix charges upon rail- 
roads and pipe lines. Still other measures gave the federal 
government power to inspect the meat prepared in packing- 
houses and compelled manufacturers to label correctly 
packages of foods and medicines. These were the " pure 
food laws." 

President Taft. — Roosevelt was elected to a second term 
in 1904, and in 1908 his Secretary of War, William H. Taft, 

was chosen to succeed him. 
Taft had had a large share 
in the establishment of 
orderly government in the 
Philippines and in Cuba. 
The problems which as Presi- 
dent he had to meet were 
similar to those of President 
Roosevelt's administration. 
One more attempt was made 
by Congress to revise the tar- 
iff, but this proved to be un- 
popular. The main problems 
were control of trusts or cor- 
porations and the conserva- 
tion of the country's natural 
resources. A new corporation 
tax was a step in the direction of distributing more fairly 
the burdens of taxation. An important change was made 
in the management of public lands. Rights to the soil were 
treated as separate from rights to the minerals beneath it. 
The soil might then be sold without selling the mineral rights. 
The practice was introduced of leasing these at a fair annual 
rental. So were preserved the nation's interest in the vast 
supplies of coal, oil, natural gas, and asphalt which remained 
untouched. At the same time the government began tc 
purchase forest areas in the White Mountains and the south- 
ern Appalachians adding them to the western national for- 




William H. Taft 



WOODROW WILSON 



480 



ests. This was a long step toward a complete scheme of 
water power conservation and development. 

Woodrow Wilson. — In the election of 19 12 occurred a 
new split in the Republican party more dangerous to its 
success than those of 1872 and 1884. The Republican 
convention renominated Taft in spite of the opposition of 
those delegates who did not regard him as the best repre- 
sentative of the Roosevelt policies. The dissatisfied dele- 
gates then nominated Roosevelt himself and called their 
party the " Progressives." The 
Democrats nominated Woodrow 
Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, 
formerly President of Princeton 
University. With the Repub- 
lican party divided, the Dem- 
ocrats easily elected their can- 
didate. 

The followers of the new 
President had a large majority 
in Congress. Laws to carry 
out the more important party 
pledges were passed. The tariff 
on imports was much reduced, 
and a little later a tariff com- 
mission was established to help 
Congress fix fair duties on imports. Laws were passed 
to give the Government of the United States fuller control 
of trusts and other large business organizations. A system 
of Federal Reserve Banks was created to do the work formerly 
done by the United States Bank which President Jackson 
had destroyed. The Reserve Banks represent the govern- 
ment in the banking business of the country and supply 
the amount of paper money, Federal Reserve notes, which 
is needed for carrying on trade. A law of 19 16, somewhat 
like the Federal Reserve act, established a system of Federal 
Farm Loan Banks to aid the farmers with government 
loans at reasonable rates of interest. Before this, in 1914, 




Woodrow Wilson 



49° 



NEW METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 




the United States had decided to build a government system 
of railroads for Alaska, in order to open for settlement a 
new frontier and to put on the market for the benefit of the 
American people the products of its forests, its mines, and its 
soil. These were important laws, but the completion of the 
Panama Canal, and the Great European War attracted more 
attention. In 1916 President Wilson was chosen for a second 

term, though the number of 
his party in Congress was re- 
duced by the election. 

The Election of Warren G. 
Harding. — Soon after the 
election of 19 16 the United 
States was at war with Ger- 
many. During President Wil- 
son's second term the war 1 
and the problems which arose 
as a result of it claimed at- 
tention. In the election of 
1920 there was sharp dif- 
ference of opinion over how 
these problems should be 
solved. The Democrats nom- 
inated James M. Cox, Gov- 
ernor of Ohio, and the Republicans Senator Warren G. 
Harding, also of Ohio. The Republican candidate won the 
election by a very large majority, Senator Harding becoming 
the 27th President of the United States. In the meantime 
other problems of government interested the American peo- 
ple. One or two had perplexed them long before the be- 
ginning of the Twentieth Century. 

Mismanaging American Cities. — Party managers, " polit- 
ical bosses " they were generally called, often managed city 
affairs to suit themselves. City councils did as they ordered. 
When purchases were made or streets opened or buildings 
constructed, the city was charged prices higher than those 




Warren G. Harding 



•See chapter XLVIII. 



CITY GOVERNMENT 



49 1 



charged to private individuals for similar things, and the 
difference was divided between the sellers and the officials. 
This method has been named " graft." 

The most famous group of such " grafters," l called at the 
time a " ring," led by William M. Tweed, stole $100,000,000 
from New York City in three years. They paid a plasterer 
$3,000,000 for work they said he had done. As they alone 
kept the city accounts, no one could tell how they had used 
the money raised by taxation. In 187 1 the thefts of the 
Tweed Ring were dis- 

"1 




/-6v- V If- V, 



v<H0 510W THE PlOflfi WW 



TWM nm 



The "Tweed Ring" 

From a cartoon by Nast 



covered and some of 
the band were pun- 
ished. Such stories 
aroused the people. 

The reasons why 
Americans have found 
it so difficult to secure 
honest city govern- 
ment have been of 
two kinds. The prin- 
cipal one is that citi- 
zens have been more 
interested in their 
business than in their government. The other is that 
many a city has been organized in such clumsy fashion that 
honest officials have had a hard task to manage its affairs 
well. 

Changes in City Government. — The cities have borrowed 
parts of their organization from the national or state govern- 
ments. Instead of a governor or president they have a 
mayor ; instead of a legislature or congress they have a 
council. The council, like the state legislature and the 
national Congress, was commonly made up of two bodies. 
One body was supposed to correct the mistakes of the other. 

1 The farmer grafts upon a branch of one tree a twig coming from 
another. So the dishonest official adds to the expense of a piece of 
work money for himself. 



492 NEW METHODS OF GOVERNMENT ^ 

Most cities have abolished one of the bodies, concluding 

that two did more harm than good. New York City made 
the ehangc in 1S73. Many towns as they grew into large 
cities adopted newer and simpler forms of government. In 
recent years some have gone much farther, replacing mayor 
and council by a small commission or board. 

Galveston was the first city to try the commission plan. 
When a large part of it was wrecked by a great storm which 
swept over the Gulf of Mexico in 1900, the officials set 1 
helpless. The city needed better leadership. Several prom- 
inent men asked the state legislature to intrust the affairs of 
Galveston to a board or commission of five men. The legis- 
lature consented and a commission was chosen. One of the 
commissioners was called the mayor. The new government 
accomplished such wonders that other cities adopted the plan. 
By 1920 several hundred cities in all parts of the United States 
had introduced commission government. Large cities like 
Buffalo, Kansas City, New Orleans, and St. Paul were among 
the number. In many places, — for example Staunton, 
Virginia, — the council or commission hired a city manager. 1 
It is a growing custom to promote city managers who have 
been successful from one city to another, as is done in the 
case of superintendents of schools. 

The Short Ballot. — The plan of governing cities by small 
commissions has reduced the number of officials whom the 
voter must choose. The same result has been gained by 
intrusting to the mayor the appointment of the important 
officials, who form his " cabinet " and who manage the dif- 
ferent departments of the city. The citizen in that case 
knows whom to blame or to praise. 

In many state and local elections the voter has been obliged 
to choose his list of officials from among over 100 names on 
what is called a " blanket " ballot. This has given reason to 

1 Staunton adopted the plan in 1908. In 1920, cities of considerable 
size like Akron and Dayton, Ohio, Norfolk, Virpinia, Grand Rapids, Mich- 
igan, and San Diego, California, wire under the city manager system. 
A complete list would include about 175 cities of varying population. 



RECENT CHANGEvS IN GOVERNMENT 



493 



the cry for the " short ballot," in order that the voter may 
make fewer and more intelligent choices. 

City Planning. — The new interest in the management of 
cities has shown itself in other ways besides methods of 
government. Many Americans, as well as Europeans, have 
ceased to look upon their city merely as a very large, hap- 
hazard collection of houses, clustered about factories, stores, 
railroad stations, and steamboat wharves. They have begun 







f rni. n;n;iHiuui 




The Capitol at Washington 

The Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House of Representatives 
meet in the Capitol 



to think that cities should be planned as carefully as a person 
plans his dwelling. They argue that each person, however 
small his income, should have a share of sunlight and pure 
air, and should be able to go rapidly and cheaply to his place 
of labor. The location of residences and factories, of large 
and small streets, and of railway lines, should be planned 
carefully. The builder of one house should not be allowed 
to make his neighbor's house uncomfortable. Parks, play- 
grounds, bath houses, and social halls are already provided 
in many places. The citizens are beginning to work together 



494 NEW METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

to make the city healthful and beautiful, as well as success- 
ful in its industries. 

Woman Suffrage. — One consequence of the change in 
the methods of manufacturing, replacing household indus- 
tries by work in the factory, has been a rapid increase in 
the number of women who work side by side with men. 
Women have, more than before, taken the lead in the great 
reforms of the time. Many of them demanded the right 
to vote and to have a share in managing the affairs of city, 
state, and nation. In 1869, when Wyoming organized its 
territorial government, women were included among the 
voters. When the territory became a state, they kept the 
right to vote. In 1893 Wyoming's next neighbor, Colorado, 
adopted the same plan. By 1920 more than one half of the 
states had granted the privilege of voting to women. 1 In 
the same year the ratification of the nineteenth amendment 
completed the change that had been slowly taking place by 
giving the women everywhere in the United States the right 
to vote. 

Control of Officials. — About 1889 another reform was 
begun, first in the South and West. The people had grown 
tired of the way the party managers controlled conventions, 
leaving the citizen no choice but to vote for men whom the 
managers selected. Calhoun had said this would be the 
outcome when the convention system was first adopted. 
The southern and western states provided a system of prim- 
aries, at which the people had the right to nominate the candi- 
dates for election. The primaries took the place of the con- 
ventions. 

Another reform found popular favor in the western si 

I'll: that had given women the right to vote before 1920 

were Wyoming (1869), Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), Idaho (1896), 
Washington (1910), California (191 1), Arizona, Kansas, Oregon (all in 
1912), Illinois (partial, 1913), Montana and Nevada (1914), New York 
(1917), Nebraska, North Dakota, and Delaware (all in 1918), Iowa, 
Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Tennessee (all in 
1919). 



RECENT CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT 



495 



where the railroads had often controlled the members of the 
state legislatures. In 1898 South Dakota adopted the 
" Initiative and Referendum." ' By means of the Initiative, 
if a certain part or fraction of the voters proposes a law, the 
legislature must consider it. If the legislature refuses to 
adopt it, it may then be submitted to the entire body of 
voters at an election. By the Referendum, if a certain 
number of the voters demand, laws which the legislature has 
just passed must also be laid before the voters for approval 
or rejection. Such a plan makes attempts to control or bribe 





v ,. a , ti»lll»<l»IBIII««IU»»l»!lJ« l -'4\ ■ ■' " ' ■'■". '/'•"^"■,'.^'%\<\. 



ami 

, Ssrssfl UK F : "I^ 

The White House and the President's Office Building 

a legislature unprofitable. It also enables the voters to have 
a part in lawmaking. The new system has moved slowly 
eastward into several of the older states. Still another 
plan to give citizens a more direct control of their officials is 
the " Recall." It was first adopted in the city of Los Angeles. 
According to this plan the citizens, upon petition of a certain 
number of them, are required to decide at an election whether 
an official's term should be ended earlier than at the close of 

1 South Dakota was merely the first state to adopt these as a regular 
part of the mode of making laws. The Initiative and Referendum had 
long been known and frequently used in other states for special purposes. 
This was especially true of the Referendum, which was regularly used 
for the ratification of. constitutions. Both were part of the Swiss 
system of government. 



496 NEW METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

the period for which he was originally chosen. 1 Many cities 
have followed the example of Los Angeles when they have 
remodeled their methods of government. Oregon adopted 
the Recall for state officials in 1908. The Recall, like im- 
peachment, has seldom been used. It goes much farther 
than the method of impeachment, threatening the unpopular 
official, while impeachment threatens only the officials 
guilty of " high crimes and misdemeanors." 

Changing the Constitution. — One method of giving the 
citizens a more direct share in their government applied to the 
national system. Senators had always been elected by the 
state legislatures. Several cases where candidates were 
known to have bribed legislatures to vote for them aroused 
much opposition to the old way. Besides, legislatures often 
spent much of their ordinary session in a quarrel over who 
should represent the state in the United States Senate. In 
1 91 3 an amendment to the Constitution took away from the 
legislatures their privilege of choosing senators and gave 
it to the people of the states in their regular fall elections. 
An amendment of another kind, the eighteenth, adopted in 
19 1 9, prohibited the manufacture or sale of intoxicating 
liquors. 

The Great War in Europe. — Neither the changing 
methods of government nor the new issues since the Spanish 
War so much affected the welfare of America as a great war 
which started in Europe in 1914. President Wilson had been 
in office only a little more than a year when this European 
war broke out. It came as a surprise and a shock to most 
Americans. They knew that the principal countries of 
Europe had long been divided into two groups — on the one 
hand the Triple Alliance, composed of the German Empire, 
the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and Italy ; on the other, the 
Triple Entente, — France, Russia, and Great Britain. They 
had been told that at several times within ten years these two 
groups were on the verge of war, and that each country was 

1 The Recall like the Initiative and Referendum had long been in 
regular use in Switzerland. 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 497 

adding steadily to its army and navy. However, nearly every 
one was convinced that a general European war was impos- 
sible, for all realized what a terrible calamity it would be. 
They did not think any government cruel enough to bring 
it about. 

Questions 

1 . What were the chief events of the time of Roosevelt as President ? 
of Wilson as President ? 

2. Name the Presidents elected since the Spanish War. Why were 
the Presidents of the time looked to as leaders of their parties ? 

3. Why were American cities badly managed ? What changes 
have been made in city government to make it simpler ? Where did 
the commission plan of government originate? What plan originated 
in Staunton, Virginia? 

4. What other method besides the commission plan has been used 
to reduce the number of officials for whom the citizen must vote ? 

5. What is the meaning of the "short ballot" ? of "city planning" ? 

6. What new class of voters has lately been added ? Where did 
this movement begin? 

7. What methods have been introduced for the control of officials? 

8. What changes have recently been made in the Constitution? 

Exercises 

1. The members of the class should describe the local government 
of the place where they live. When was the present form of local gov- 
ernment adopted ? Is it satisfactory to the voters ? 

2. Examine a ballot of the last election. Was it a "Short ballot" 
or a "Blanket ballot "? Were the candidates nominated by direct 
primaries or by conventions ? 

3. Do the voters of the state have a share in law-making by the 
Initiative and Referendum? Do they have the right of Recall of 
officials ? If so, have any officials been recalled ? 

4. Review the extension of the number of voters, pages 283-284. 
Find out whether woman suffrage has been adopted in other countries. 

Important Dates: 

1913. The Federal Reserve System created. 

1915. Opening of the Panama Canal. 

1920. The 19th Amendment extends suffrage to Women. 



CHAPTER XLVII 
THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

Why Germany was willing to have War. — The German 
Empire had grown mightily since 187 1. The population had 
increased from forty to seventy millions. The people ceased 
to be occupied mainly with agriculture, and more than half 
of them were engaged in mining, manufacturing, and com- 
merce. Their ships were seen on every ocean. Their mer- 
chants were successful in marketing goods all over the world. 
Yet the German leaders were not satisfied. As their Em- 
peror said, they wanted " a place in the sun." He meant 
that the place should be so large that other peoples would 
stand in the shadow. It is true that nearly all lands suitable 
for colonization had been occupied before the German Empire 
was created, and that the few colonies which Germany had 
founded were unprofitable. But this was no reason for turn- 
ing the world upside down or robbing more fortunate neigh- 
bors. 

Berlin to Bagdad. — There was one part of the world in 
which the German leaders were becoming more and more 
interested. This was the Balkan Peninsula, which lies south 
of Austria-Hungary, Germany's ally for nearly forty years. 
If we study a map showing the mountainous regions of south- 
eastern Europe, we shall see that the great route from Berlin, 
Vienna, and Budapest to Constantinople crosses Serbia, 
following for many miles the valley of the Morava. The 
Emperor William from the very beginning of his reign sought 
to appear as the special friend and protector of the Turks and 
of their Sultan, the notorious Abdul Hamid. He visited 
Constantinople and journeyed as far as Jerusalem. A Ger- 
man general reorganized the Turkish army. This friendship 

498 



THE BALKANS 



499 




25 SO 75 100 

THE BALKANS 
IN 1914 



500 THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

profited German engineers and bankers, for they obtained the 
privilege of building railways, especially a railway through 
Asia Minor and down the Euphrates Valley to Bagdad and 
the Persian Gulf. 

If German money and German industry should bring back 
prosperity to this region, it would become quite as valuable 
to the Germans as would a colony. They would have some- 
thing to set over against the British control of Egypt. If 
war should ever break out with the British, troops might 
be sent toward Egypt over the new railway, and a fatal blow 
struck at the British Empire, for Egypt is a halfway house 
to India. 

Austria and the Balkans. — Germany's allies, the Austro- 
Hungarians, were interested in this scheme, but they were 
still more anxious to gain control of the Balkan Peninsula 
as far as the ^Egean Sea at Salonika. The inhabitants of the 
peninsula had no desire to come under Austrian rule. For 
centuries they were oppressed by the Turks, but had nearly 
rid themselves of these masters. In the northern section 
nearly all the peoples were branches of the South or Jugo- 
slav race. The Serbians had been the first to become inde- 
pendent. 

Bosnia, west of Serbia, half of whose inhabitants are 
Serbians, was annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. This 
angered the Serbians, who believed that men of the same race 
should have the right to live together under rulers of their 
own choosing, and not be parcelled out among powerful 
neighbors. Every advance that Serbia made was jealously 
watched by Austria. In 19 13 when the Serbians took from 
Turkey lands long inhabited by their kindred, Austria pro- 
posed to begin a " defensive war " upon Serbia, but Germany 
advised Austria to wait. She did wait, though only for 
another pretext. 

If Austria-Hungary should control the Balkan Peninsula, 
and Germany the Turkish Empire, the whole of Central 
Europe and Western Asia, from Berlin to Bagdad, would be 
under the influence of these two allies. 



PREPARATION FOR WAR 501 

Who in Germany could decide for War? — When the pre- 
text for war should be found, the rulers of Germany meant 
that their armies should strike smashing blows before their 
opponents were ready to move. The German army in 19 13 
had been increased to 800,000 men, with three or four times 
as many more in reserve, who could be called to the colors. 
No other army except the Russian was nearly as large, and 
the Russian army was poorly supplied and had only a small 
stock of munitions. The railroads in Germany were planned 
to carry vast numbers of men to any frontier, east or west, 
with the greatest speed. Were these preparations simply 
for defense, or were they meant for use when a convenient 
time came to attack neighboring countries and rob them of 
border provinces? The decision upon this question rested 
with a little group of officials about the " Supreme War 
Lord," as the German Emperor was called. 

The Imperial German Government included a parliament, 
named the Reichstag ; but, unlike the English House of 
Commons, it did not control either the Emperor or his prin- 
cipal minister, the Chancellor. One of its own members 
spoke of it as no better than a debating society. Whether the 
German Emperor and his advisors would decide for war or 
for peace was not very hard to guess. They seemed readiest 
to listen to the Pan-Germans, who were always talking about 
the might of Germany and the necessity of more territory for 
German growth. One of these Pan-Germans, General von 
Bernhardi, declared that in the next war the German rallying 
cry should be, " World power or downfall." 

The Pretext. — Austria had to wait only a year for a 
pretext. On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 
heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in 
Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Although the assassins were 
Austrian subjects, they were of Serbian stock. Austrian 
and Hungarian officials declared that Serbia was the real 
conspirator, and that the assassins were only vulgar tools. 
Germany was ready to support her ally, although an attack 
upon Serbia might bring on the general war so much dreaded. 



502 THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

Serbia's Champion. — The nation that stood in the way 
ot Austria's having her will with Serbia was Russia. Both 
the Serbians and the Russians belong to the Slav race. Their 
religion is the same. It was to Russia that Serbia owed her 
freedom from the Turks. Slavic peoples felt so strong a 
sympathy for each other that the Germans accused them of 
being Pan-Slavs, favoring the union of all Slavs against other 
European peoples. It is certain that the Russians were in no 
mood to see Austria-Hungary destroy Serbia's independence. 

War Begins. — The Austrians first sent to Serbia a series 
of harsh demands. Serbia accepted all but one or two, and 
these she could not accept without sacrificing her independ- 
ence. Austria refused to submit the question to the Hague 
Tribunal, and hastened to declare war. Great Britain urged 
all to join in a conference. Germany replied that this was 
impossible, because the question concerned only Austria and 
Serbia. She also said that Great Britain's best efforts should 
be used to persuade Russia to stand aside. But Russia was 
serious and began to assemble her armies. Germany then, 
on August i , declared war, in order to get her armies in motion 
before Russia should be ready to act. 

As France was the ally of Russia, Germany prepared to 
attack her also. The French were so anxious to avoid war, 
unless it was forced upon them, that they kept their soldiers 
several miles from the frontier until the German government 
declared war. 

Great Britain enters the War. — Germany's first act forced 
the British to take up arms. This act was the invasion of 
Belgium, a neutral state, pledged to fight on neither side. 
To understand the reason we must study the map and remem- 
ber that Germany meant to crush France before the Russians 
had time to assemble large armies on the eastern frontiers of 
Prussia. If France was out of the fight , the < Jen nan generals 
argued that the Russian forces could soon be defeated. 

The frontier between Prance and Germany runs from 
Luxemburg to Switzerland through a region broken by hills 
or ranges of mountains. Any advance toward Paris, even 



WAR BEGINS 503 

if the French should be driven back, would be difficult and 
slow, because the German armies would have to force their 
way up the eastern slopes of one plateau after another. This 
would give time for a Russian advance. The German generals 
therefore decided to take the quickest road into France, which 
was straight across the wide plains of Belgium. As the 
French did not expect an attack in that direction, the Ger- 
mans thought that they could sweep on through the open 
rolling country of northern France to the gates of Paris. 

Germany, as well as France and Great Britain, had agreed 
by treaty that no army should enter Belgium. In spite of 
this, crying out that " Necessity knows no law," and that the 
treaty was only " a scrap of paper," the Germans started to 
" cut their way through." The consequence was that, on 
August 5, the British government declared war. The British 
people felt that their pledges to Belgium must be kept. 
I The German Plan breaks down. — The brave Belgians 
tried to bar the way to the Germans, and succeeded in holding 
them for a few days before Liege, a strong fortress town on the 
Meuse. The Belgians were finally crushed under the weight 
of numbers. Their army retreated toward the coast, while 
the Germans marched southward through Brussels to the 
French border. A small British army, all that was then 
ready, was promptly despatched to France to help the French 
defend their frontier. 

The German hosts outnumbered both French and Biitish 
and pressed into France not only from Belgium, but also 
through Luxemburg and Lorraine. They advanced with 
astonishing speed until they had crossed the Marne and were 
directly east of Paris. The French capital seemed to be 
doomed and the Government was moved to Bordeaux. 
Verdun, the great fortress on the northeastern frontier, was 
nearly surrounded. Nevertheless, early in September, the 
French and the British rallied for a supreme effort. They 
broke the center of the long German lines and captured thou- 
sands of prisoners. The Germans had expected a decisive 
victory ; they were disastrously defeated. The plan to 



504 THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

crush France had failed. This has been called the First 
Battle of the Marne. Its hero was General Joffre, the 
leader of the French. 

The German plan broke down in the East as well as in the 
West. The Russians assembled their armies so rapidly 
that they invaded East Prussia before the Germans were 
ready to defend that frontier, and German troops had to be 
drawn by rail from their armies in France to check the in- 
vaders. 

The Germans had still another disappointment before 
autumn was over. They tried to drive the Belgian army 
out of Belgium and to take the Channel ports, Dunkirk and 
Calais. They did succeed in capturing Antwerp, Bruges, 
and Ostend, but nothing beyond. The southwestern corner 
of Belgium remained unconquered. Arras could not be 
captured, and the French coast was safe. Reinforcements 
and supplies for the French could cross from England to 
France unhindered by the German armies. 

Becoming a World War. — The war had not been going on 
many months before all the world seemed divided into two 
huge armies. Japan, as Great Britain's ally in the Far East, 
joined in the struggle. Even China and Siam eventually 
declared war upon the Germans. It was a world war in 
another way, too. Great Britain had never had universal 
military service, but now was obliged to send into the battle 
lines all able-bodied men not needed in industry. The motto 
was " Work or fight." Before the war was over five million 
Britons had been called to the colors. If we should add 
together the armies of all countries engaged in the war, the 
total would be more than fifty million men. Most of these 
countries took the side of France, England, and Russia, but 
Turkey and Bulgaria fought on the German side. 

A small group of Turkish schemers, led by German agents, 
forced the Turkish Empire into the war. The consequences 
were serious for Russia, especially because the Turks could 
close the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. With the outlet 
of the Baltic Sea already closed by the Germans, Russia had 



BECOMES A WORLD WAR 



505 




to obtain supplies over the Trans-Siberian Railway from 
Vladivostok, on the Pacific, thousands of miles away, or 
from Archangel on the White Sea, which is frozen half the 
year. 

This misfortune was offset early in 191 5 by the entrance of 
Italy into the war on the side of the Allies. The Italians 
sympathized with the French who had been so unjustly 
attacked by Germany. They also were anxious to bring 
under their flag the 
Italians who lived under 
Austrian rule in the 
Trentino, in Trieste, and 
all along the north- 
eastern border. These 
lands they called " Un- 
redeemed Italy," which 
should be added, they 
thought, to the other 
states united in the King- 
dom of Italy. 

The action of Italy ended the famous Triple Alliance which 
had lasted more than thirty years. Soon, however, there was 
a Quadruple Alliance, for Bulgaria joined Germany, Austria, 
and Turkey. The other name for this alliance was the 
" Central Powers." Bulgaria's motive was to gain territory 
of which she believed she had been wrongfully deprived by 
Serbia and Greece. The consequence was that Serbia was 
soon overpowered. The road from Berlin to Constantinople 
was open. 

The next year the Roumanians suffered a similar fate. 
They joined the Allies expecting help from Russia, but the 
Russian armies were disorganized and without supplies. As 
the British and French fleets could not break through the 
Dardanelles, the Roumanians were shut off from help. 

Battles were fought in still more distant parts of the 
world. The Turks and the Germans tried to attack Egypt 
and seize the Suez Canal. They struggled with the British 



An American "Whippet" Tank 



506 THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

for mastery in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, 
and with the Russians in the mountains of Armenia and on 
the borders of Persia. The whole world was full of turmoil 
and the clash of arms. 

New Methods of Fighting. — This war differed from former 
wars not only in the number of soldiers, but also in their 
manner of fighting. When the Germans retreated from the 
Marne, they entrenched themselves in Belgium and northern 
France, in one continuous line from the Channel to Switzer- 
land. The British and the French likewise " dug in," as the 

soldiers called it. 
At short inter- 
vals deep shelters 
or ' ' bomb proofs , ' ' 
were constructed 
to protect men 
and officers from 
exploding shells. 

A Large British Bombing Plane In front of the 

trenches was 

stretched row upon row of entangled barbed wire. The 

trench system of the Germans was finally named the " Hin- 

denburg Line," from their favorite general, who, they thought, 

could never be beaten. 

In an attack the first thing was to smash the enemy's de- 
fenses by the fire of hundreds of cannon. The soldiers then 
leaped out of their trenches and charged. This they called 
" going over the top." The artillery sent a stream of shells, 
or a " barrage," just ahead to break down the resistance of 
the enemy. In the later years of the war the British con- 
structed steel tanks, or tractors, with caterpillar wheels, and 
armed with rapid-firing cannon. The heavy tanks could 
crash through every obstacle, while the light tanks, or 
"whippets," moved swiftly upon the enemy's lines, open- 
ing the way for the advancing soldiers. 

Of all the methods the most wonderful was the fighting in 
the air. The Germans at first trusted in enormous Zeppelin 




GERMAN " FRIGHTFULNESS 



5°7 



airships, but these proved to be no match for swift airplanes. 
Both sides relied on armed biplanes, which fought singly or 
in squadrons. Sometimes these battles took place two miles 
above the earth. Airplanes were also used for scouting. 
Often they were fitted with instruments for making photo- 
graphs of the enemy's position. 

Sea Power. — From the outset the British navy, aided by 
the French navy, controlled the sea. This control was of 







The Interior of the Library at Louvain after the German 
Troops had Passed 

An example of ruthlessness 

immense value to Great Britain and her allies, for it enabled 
them to draw food and other supplies from neutral countries, 
such as the United States. It also enabled them to blockade 
Germany and her allies, cutting these countries off from the 
same markets, with the consequence that the Germans and 
Austrians were soon short of cotton, wheat, copper, rubber, 
and other important articles. 

German "Frightfulness." — War is always cruel, but the 
German leaders deliberately added to its terrors. They 
seemed to think that if they thoroughly frightened the in- 
habitants of an invaded country, its soldiers would lose 



5o8 THE GREAT WAR IX EUROPE 

courage, abandon all resistance, and sue for" peace. Many 
things that they did were expressly forbidden in treaties 
they had signed. Here again they held that " Necessity 
knows no law." 

When they first advanced into Belgium they burned towns 
and shot numbers of the inhabitants, women as well as men, 
if they suspected even a few individuals of having fired upon 
them after the Belgian army had withdrawn. Upon such 
an excuse Louvain, with its cathedral and university, was 
burned. In their invasion of northern France they acted in 
the same way. The only consequence was to excite general 
horror and to steel all hearts against a thought of yielding. 




The " Lusitania" 

The same consequence followed other ruthless practices. 
From the very outset bombs were dropped from Zeppelins on 
cities many miles from the battle lines. Antwerp was the 
first victim, then Paris, and then London. As these raids 
occurred at night many of the inhabitants, women and 
children as well as men, were killed in their beds. After 
several of the Zeppelins had been destroyed by airplane 
squadrons or by cannon shots, the Germans carried on the 
raids with swift airplanes. 

In 1 9 1 5 the Germans began the practice of sending clouds of 
poison gas over lines which they proposed to attack. This 
was first tried against British troops near Ypres. Such 
fiendish methods were unsuspected and the soldiers who 
breathed the poison died in agony. To guard against the 
danger, masks were soon invented and distributed to the troops. 



FRIGHTFULNESS ON THE SEA 509 

The Allies in self-defense were obliged to produce gases for 
use in battle. They also raided German cities from the air, 
although they generally dropped their bombs on railroad 
stations and munition works. 

Frightfulness on the Sea. — The German leaders carried 
" frightfulness " into warfare on the sea, where fighting, 
terrible as it might be, had always been done with knightly 
courage and noble courtesy. Their means was the submarine 
or U-boat. Claiming that the British blockade had brought 
slow starvation upon the women and children of Germany, 




The Struggle for Life in the Sea after the Sinking of 
the "lusitania" 

and that this gave them the right of retaliation, they threat- 
ened to sink all vessels, even those belonging to neutral 
countries, which sailed to or from the shores of Great Britain, 
France, and Italy. The attack by the submarine was usually 
made by discharging a torpedo under water, and a fearful 
explosion was often the first notice a ship had that a U-boat 
was near. The sailors and passengers often did not have time 
to launch the lifeboats before they were engulfed with the 
ship. If they did get away in boats, they might be scores of 
miles from the nearest shore and doomed to perish miserably. 
The most ruthless deed of the kind was the destruction of 
the great Cunarder Lusitania, which was sunk without warn- 
ing in May, 191 5. More than eleven hundred men, women, 
and children were drowned, among them 114 Americans. 



510 THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

The Neutrality of the United States. — A few nations 
remained neutral to the end of the war. If their lands, like 
those of Holland and Denmark, lay open to German attack, 
they had little choice in the matter, however strong their 
sympathies might be with the cause of the Belgians and the 
French. At first it seemed to be the duty of the United 
States to maintain a careful neutrality. Ever since Wash- 
ington's time the American people had been taught to beware 
of " entangling alliances " and to stand aloof from European 
conflicts. To many the war at first appeared to be a struggle 
between two rival European groups of nations, — Germany 
and Austria-Hungary on the one hand, and France, Russia, 
and Great Britain on the other. The great majority of 
Americans, however, sympathized with France and Great 
Britain, especially after they read the stories of the cruel ti< i 
of the German armies in Belgium and northern France. And 
they felt no doubt that Germany would soon suffer a well- 
deserved defeat. Many generous young men were eager to 
have a share in the triumph of the good cause and crossed the 
border to Canada to enlist, while others went directly to 
France. 

The United States enters the War. — As the war went on, 
leading Americans saw that their country would inevitably 
be drawn into the struggle. They began to realize what were 
the purposes of the military masters of Germany. The suc- 
cesses of the German armies tempted German writers and 
speakers to boast how they were to make the world over. 
Smaller and weaker nations were to have no place. The law 
of might was to be the rule. When Serbia and Roumania 
were overrun, when the Russian armies were forced far back 
within their own frontiers, and when the German hold upon 
northern France seemed unshakable, the dream of power 
cherished by the Pan-Germans seemed to be dangerously near 
to a reality. Such a Germany would threaten the peace of 
the United States. The German Emperor said to the Ameri- 
can ambassador, " After the war I shall stand no nonsense 
from the United States." 



FRIGHTFULNESS ON THE SEA 511 

Another reason for the change in American feeling was the 
conduct of German consular officials in our principal cities 
and of members of the staff of the German legation at Wash- 
ington. They constantly plotted to stop the trade between 
the United States and the Allies by blowing up munition 
factories or by putting bombs in ships about to leave port. 
They also planned to destroy bridges and canals in Canada 
and to start insurrections in India. 

It was the ruthless attacks of submarines upon merchant 
vessels and passenger ships which changed Germany from a 
secret foe to an open enemy. According to the honorable 
customs of the sea, if merchant vessels were captured and had 




A Submarine 

to be sunk, the crews must be carried ashore. To drown 
them was sheer piracy. 

After the sinking of the Lusitania President Wilson 
solemnly warned the German Government that the United 
States would omit no act necessary to safeguard the lives 
of its citizens. A year later the Sussex was wrecked by a 
torpedo fired by a submarine lurking off the French coast. 
Eighty persons were killed or wounded, two of the wounded 
being Americans. The protests of the United States ex- 
torted from Germany a half-hearted promise not to repeat 
the deed. 

Nevertheless, on January 31, 191 7, the German Govern- 
ment gave notice that from the next day on its submarines 
would sink all ships sailing to or from the Allied coasts. 



5" THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE 

President Wilson immediately broke off diplomatic relations 
with Germany. Regardless of his warnings the Germans 
began sinking American vessels. Just at this time it was 
discovered that Germany had been trying to persuade the 
Mexican Government to attack the United States and 
attempt with German aid the reconquest of Texas, New 
Mexico, and Arizona. 

The American people were convinced that to yield to the 
threats of a foreign government would be to surrender their 
rights as an independent nation. They were ready to give 
a united support to President Wilson when, on April 2, he 
asked Congress to declare that the German attacks were 
acts of war. They saw, as he said, that the war had become 
a struggle for liberty, for the freedom of each people, small 
or great to pursue its work in peace, threatened neither by 
ambitious princes, nor by nations eager to increase their 
power or enlarge their boundaries. Both Houses of Congress 
by large majorities declared war upon the German Imperial 
Government. 

Approach of a Crisis. — " Hurry up, America ! " was the 
call often heard in the spring and summer of 1 9 1 7 . The war 
had been going on for nearly three years, and still a decisive 
victory for the cause of the Allies seemed far away. In Bel- 
gium and northern France the battle lines had changed little 
since the autumn of 19 14. The British and French armies 
drove the Germans back, yet slowly and at fearful cost. The 
Italians had made some progress along their northern frontier, 
although they had not reached Trent and Trieste. Serbia 
and Roumania were in a sad plight occupied by German, 
Austrian, and Bulgarian armies. The Allies, however, aided 
now by the Greeks, held the region around Salonika. In the 
north the situation was worse. The Russian armies, with- 
out supplies, defeated and disorganized, were ready to give 
up the fight. A revolution had broken out in Pctrograd and 
had overthrown the Czar. The new government failed to 
rally the people or the troops to continue the struggle. It 
was only a question of time when the Germans would be able 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 513 

to transfer most of their forces from the eastern front to 
France and Belgium. Would the Allied troops be able to 
resist the fresh onset ? Would America be in time to help ? 

Questions 

1 . Why was Germany willing to have a war ? What did Germany 
wish to do in Turkey ? Austria- Hungary in the Balkans ? What 
was the " Berlin to Bagdad " plan of Germany? 

2. Who in Germany had the power to begin a war ? Did the Reich- 
stag have all the powers of the English Parliament ? 

3. What pretext did Austria- Hungary find for having its way in 
the Balkans ? Why did Russia become the champion of Serbia ? 

4. How did Serbia try to prevent a war ? Great Britain ? France ? 

5. Why did Great Britain enter the war? Why did Germany 
attack Belgium ? Why did Italy refuse to help Germany and Austria- 
Hungary, her former allies ? 

6. Why did Germany's war plans at the beginning fail ? 

7. Why did Turkey and Bulgaria later join Germany and Austria- 
Hungary ? Italy the Allies ? 

8. What advantage did the British and the French have on the 
seas ? How did they combat the German submarines ? 

9. What methods of " f rightfulness " did the Germans use on land 
and sea ? 

10. Why did the United States enter the war? 

Exercises 

1. Make a list of the nations that entered the war and the reasons 
of each for being at war. 

2. Collect pictures of the new methods of fighting in the war. 

Important Dates: 

August 1, 1914. The beginning of the World War. 
April 6, 1917. The United States enters the war. 



CHAPTER XLVIII 
THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 

Preparations for the War. — It was one thing to declare war, 
but quite another to make ready to take part effectively in 
such a gigantic struggle of men and machines as had been 
going on in Europe for nearly three years. The task of pre- 
paring plans was given to a Council of National Defense, 
composed of members of the President's Cabinet and men 
drawn from private life. Among the many things they had 
to consider were transportation, munitions, food, clothing, 
medicine, and sanitation. Committees of business men, 
engineers, doctors, etc., were formed to aid the Council. 
Hundreds, even thousands, were eager to help, for the people 
were convinced that this was their war. 

Sending Warships to Europe. — One of the first tasks of the 
United States was to assist the fleets of the Allies in protecting 
the merchant vessels which were carrying supplies, chiefly 
between Great Britain and France, or between the United 
States and Great Britain, France, and Italy. Scores of these 
vessels were being sunk every month by German submarines. 
Our Government, therefore, sent a large number of battle- 
ships, cruisers, and destroyers to European waters. Hun- 
dreds of smaller craft were hastily organized as a "mosquito 
fleet " and set to guarding the American coast trade against 
submarines. The work called for thousands of laborers, sea- 
men, and gunners. Naval recruiting stations assembled 
these men and sent them to training stations where they were 
prepared for the new work. 

Making a Great Army. — A second task was to enlarge and 
remoflcl the army. It was not enough to have men trained 
to use rifle, bayonet , and field gun. Mechanics, truck drivers, 
engineers, aviators, tank drivers, and flame and gas fighters 

51 I 



PREPARATIONS FOR THE WAR 



515 



were just as important. The regular army in April, 1 9 1 7 , was 
a force of about 122,000 men. The state organizations, 
called the National Guard, barely 150,000, were summoned 
for national service. 

The first step was to call for volunteers in order to increase 
the regular army and the national guard to about one million. 




A much larger army than this being considered necessary, 
Congress adopted the " selective service " system. All men 
between the ages 21 and 31, later on between 18 and 45, 
were required to register. If they were not needed for work 
in important industries, they were called to the camps as fast 
as means of training could be provided. Before the war was 
ended more than 3,750,000 men had been added to the army. 
The Training Camps. — Huge camps were built to train all 
these men. Offices, shops, barracks, exercise grounds, and 



5*6 



THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 



gun ranges were prepared at convenient places throughout 
the United States. Vast groups of buildings seemed to 
spring up like " boom " towns in the West. What in the 
spring was a field became by fall a bustling city of forty or 
fifty thousand men. 

The camps were great schools for a new kind of national 
service. Special schools were provided for the training of 
officers. Sixteen were opened on May 15, 191 7. There were 
also schools for aviators, schools of " fire " for gunners, 
schools for drivers of tanks, and for other equally necessary 




A View of an American Training Camp 



duties. There were even schools for recruits who had never 
had a chance to learn the English language, although they 
were already American citizens. Eighty per cent of the men 
in one regiment, in others fifty per cent, were of foreign birth. 
Whole companies were made up of Poles, or Russians, or 
Greeks, or Italians. All were eager to become well-trained 
American soldiers. 

The Welfare of the Soldiers. — The plans of the camps 
included hospitals, theaters, libraries, club houses, and 
recreation grounds. The club houses were sometimes " huts " 
or canteens managed by the Red Cross, the Young Men's 
Christian Association, the Knights of Columbus, or the 
Young Men's Hebrew Association. They were sometimes 
" community houses " where the soldiers could meet their 



PREPARATIONS IN FRANCE 



517 



relatives and friends. Games and athletic sports were pro- 
vided in which the entire camp had a share. Part of this 
work was under the control of the War epartment's Com- 
mission on Training Camp Activities. 

Preparations in France. — Soon after the war began the 
Government announced that an army would be sent to France 
and that General John J. Pershing would be its commander. 
In June, 191 7, he crossed the ocean to make ready for the 
arrival of the soldiers. As all the camps in France were 
crowded with French and British soldiers it was necessary for 
the Americans to build new camps. The wharfs and store- 




Playing Games after Drill in an Army Camp 

houses at the ports were enlarged in order to receive the great 
quantities of supplies which the soldiers would need. Loco- 
motives and cars had to be sent from America, because 
the French railroads were already overworked. Hardly a 
thing done for the training camps at home but had to be done 
in France. The organizations which worked for the men in 
the United States worked for them in their French sur- 
roundings. 

The first American soldiers reached France soon after 
General Pershing. They were instructed by British and 
French veterans in all the tricks of the enemy. This final 
training required about four months. On the night of 
October 23, a small body of these American troops took over 
from the French a section of the battle line. They were 
brigaded with the French ; a battalion of the one, then a 



518 THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 



battalion of the other. Batteries of American gunners were 
paired with French batteries. 

Raising Food for All. — The soldiers at the front or in the 
camps were only part of the great army America was organiz- 
ing to help win the war. The workmen in the mills and the 
fanners in the fields were equally needed. America was 
asked to send food to the Allies, for so many of the English, 
French, and Italian fanners had fallen in battle or were still 

fighting that food was scarce. 
To decide how much should 
be sent abroad and to see that 
the rest should be fairly dis- 
tributed at home, the Gov- 
ernment appointed Herbert C. 
Hoover as Food Administrat i >r. 
He had already been very 
successful in distributing food 
among the suffering Belgians. 
"" In response to his appeals the 
American fanners endeavored 
in 1 91 7 to increase their crops, 
and in 101S to increase them 
still more. Boys and girls, as 
well as older persons, planted 
war gardens everywhere. The 
United Slates Department of Agriculture, the State Agricul- 
tural schools, and the County Agricultural agents pointed out 
how larger crops could be raised. 

It was necessary to make a careful use of the food which 
was produced. Cards were distributed telling what to save 
and what each one's share should be. Model kitchens were 
established in order that housewives could learn better how- 
to save food. 

One way to check waste of food was to fix certain days on 
which people wen- asked to eat no wheat either at home, or 
in restaurants, or in hotels. There wen 1 also meatless days. 
Bakers were required to mix other kinds of flour with wheat. 




Herbert Hoover 



THE BRIDGE OF SHIPS 



519 



Limits were placed upon the amount of flour and sugar 
grocers could sell to a family. In a few cases the prices were 
fixed by an order of the Government. 

Other Forms of Control. — It was equally important to 
have enough coal. Miners were urged to add millions of tons 
to the supply. An administrator was appointed to see that 
fuel was fairly distributed. The prices were fixed. The 
winter of 1917-1918 was very cold and there was not enough 
fuel to satisfy our own wants 
and to provide for the steam- 
ships which were plying between 
our ports and Europe. It be- 
came necessary to have " fuel- 
less " days, when mills and stores 
were obliged to close. 

To add to the supply of food 
and fuel was useless unless the 
railroads could carry the new 
burdens. More locomotives and 
cars were demanded. Trains 
must be more heavily loaded *"~ 
and sent to their destination by 
the shortest routes. All this re- 
quired great sums of money. 
The business had to be directed 
from one office rather than from a 
sequence was that the Government 
railroads and appointed a railroad 
before the armistice of November, 1918, the Government 
also assumed control of the telegraphs and telephones. 

The Bridge of Ships. — ■ The next task was to add ships. 
At the beginning of the war the United States had compara- 
tively few. The British supplied many, but these were not 
enough. Ninety-nine German steamships which were in 
American ports were seized and used to carry men and 
supplies to Europe. For example, the giant steamship 
Vaterland became the Leviathan. Three huge Government 




John J. Pershing 

hundred. The con- 
took control of the 
administrator. Just 



520 THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 

shipyards were established, and more than a hundred other 
yards on the Atlantic or Pacific coasts or on the Lakes were 
pressed into the work of constructing wooden or steel ships. 
Steamships built especially for the ore trade on the Lakes, 
and too large to pass through the Welland Canal, were cut in 
two parts, the open ends temporarily closed, the parts towed 
to the seaboard and there rejoined. The ship then took its 
place in the growing fleets of ocean liners. 

By the middle of the summer of 1918 the United States and 
the Allies in Europe were building ships faster then the Ger- 
man submarines could sink them. The number of ships 
running between the United States and Europe made what 
the President said would be needed to win the war, a 
" bridge " to Europe. 

Liberty Loans and War Savings Stamps. — The training 
camps, " the bridge of ships," and the supplies for the armies 
in Europe cost enormous sums of money. Besides these the 
Government was obliged to lend the Allies many millions 
with which to buy war material in the United States. It had 
cost about $12,000,000 a year to carry on the war for Inde- 
pendence, and about $1,200,000,000 a year to wage the war 
to maintain the Union, but the war against Germany cost the 
United States for the first year over $13,000,000,000. Con- 
gress increased the taxes so as to raise about one-third of the 
money. The rest of the people were asked to lend. In 
return they received Liberty Bonds, or, if the sums were small, 
War Savings Stamps. The Government asked for fourteen 
billion dollars ; the people offered to lend nearly eighteen 
billion. This does not include more than one billion dollars' 
worth of War Savings Stamps which were bought. Citizens' 
committees, volunteer bodies of men and women, in every 
city and village of the land, rallied the rich and poor in the 
work of raising Liberty Loans. School children joined 
eagerly in saving to buy War Savings Stamps. 

Women's Work in the War. — As the war went on all 
nations learned the value of woman's work. There were not 
enough men left to do all that was necessary in fields, mines, 



THE CRISIS AT HAND 



521 



and factories. Most of the work of the Red Cross fell to the 
share of women, especially nursing, making bandages, and 
preparing comforts for the soldiers. It has already been said 
that they joined in saving food and that they helped in raising 
money. Others went into the harvest fields and factories. 
There was no call for work which they were not ready to 
answer, no matter how heavy the task. 

The Crisis at Hand. — As winter drew toward its close the 
Germans massed their forces for a final struggle. Their 
leaders were ready to sacrifice 
thousands of men if only they 
could win a victory so crushing 
that the Allies would be forced 
to make peace. They had 
more men than ever, because 
war- weary Russia, torn by new 
revolutions, had abandoned 
the fight, and it had become 
possible to transfer many Ger- 
man divisions from the Eastern 
to the Western front. 

The Germans made their 
great attack on March 21,1918, 
in Picardy, near St. Quentin, 
where the lines held by the 
British armies joined the French lines. At first they were 
successful, because the British were taken by surprise and 
were outnumbered three to one. The Germans swept on for 
thirty-seven miles until they were within sight of Amiens, a 
railroad center and supply station for the whole British line. 
Had they captured Amiens they might have pressed on 
toward the Channel or turned southward and captured Paris. 
The heroic efforts of British and French troops sent to reen- 
force their exhausted comrades stopped the advancing Ger- 
mans and saved the cause. 

The Allies learned a lesson from the nearness of disaster. 
It was the need of unity of command. This was an old 




Ferdinand Foch 



522 THE UNITED STATES IX THE WORLD WAR 

lesson, but very hard to apply when several nations act to- 
gether, because each government naturally prefers to control 
its own troops. Nevertheless, Great Britain, Italy, and the 
United States now accepted General Foch, the new leader of 
the French armies, as the supreme commander of all the 
Allied armies. At the same time, as reinforcements were 
desperately needed, plans were made to hasten the transpor- 
tation of men from the training camps in the United States 
to the front in France. The British Government lent hun- 
dreds of its ships to aid our Government in making the 
" bridge of ships " a reality. The United States had sent 
50,000 men a month to Europe in mji; ; it now increased 
the number to nearly 300,000 a month. 

• However, the Germans continued their tremendous drives 
against the Allies, hoping for victory before large American 
forces should arrive. In a second battle they attempted to 
crush the British army in Flanders. The " dogged pluck " 
of the British troops stopped the Germans, and the Channel 
ports were again saved. A third German blow struck the 
French line between Soissons and Rheims. A break here 
might open the road to Paris and perhaps force the French to 
make peace. The battle drove a third wedge or salient into 
the Allied line before the Germans were brought to a stand- 
still. This time American troops had an important share in 
checking the enemy. 

Chateau-Thierry. — At the time the German advance 
reached the Marne the United States had nearly a million 
men in France. Many of them were already well-trained 
soldiers. At the height of the battle on the Marne General 
Dickman was sent with American troops to the aid of the 
French. A brigade of marines was also sent. A desperate 
battle was f< night in the neighborhood of the town of Chateau- 
Thierry. The Germans were repulsed ; and the credit was 
due partly to the French, partly to the Americans. 

The Tide of Battle turns. In their repeated " drives " 

March 21 the Germans had lost heavily in men and 

munitions. Nor could they longer fill such gaps. The 



THE TIDE OF BATTLE TURNS 



523 



appearance of increasing numbers of Americans on the battle 
lines showed them that victory was now impossible. 

The turn of the Allies came in the middle of July when 
the Germans attempted to break through the French and 
American lines south of the Marne, in other words to deepen 
the " pocket " which they had made between Soissons and 
Rheims. They had fought their way ahead only three or 
four miles when French and American armies further north, 
ordered by General Foch, threatened to close the mouth 




Chateau-Thierry in July, 1918 

of the pocket altogether. Nothing but a hurried retreat 
saved these German armies from capture. 

From this time until the armistice was signed on November 
1 1 General Foch never gave the Germans time to recover from 
one defeat before he inflicted another upon them. There was 
righting all along the line from the Channel to Switzerland, 
but the hard blows fell first in the center, then far away on the 
left, again on the right. In August the British attacked the 
Germans in Picardy and steadily regained the ground they 
had lost in March. On the 12th and 13th of September 
American armies drove the Germans from an advanced 
position, or salient, which they had long heM at St, MihieL 



524 THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 

and which endangered Verdun. In two days the Ameri- 
cans captured 15,000 men and recovered 200 square miles of 
territory. 

The most difficult task given to the American armies was 
the expulsion of the Germans from the Argonne Forest. The 
whole region, made up of wooded hills, had been turned into 
a network of barbed wire, of concealed pits, of hidden machine 
guns, and of every other means of defense which the Germans 
could invent. The American losses were terrible, and yet 
they pressed on victoriously. West of the Argonne the 
French were constantly driving back the Germans. In 
northwestern France and Belgium the Belgians, Canadians, 
and British were equally victorious. Village after village, 
city after city, tortured by four years of German rule, was 
delivered. By the end of the first week in November the 
advance of the French and the Americans from the south, and 
of the British and Belgians from the west threatened half the 
German armies with destruction. 

Other German Disasters. — Meanwhile the news from 
Germany's allies was bad. Early in September the Bul- 
garians, exhausted, had given up the fight. The Turks were 
in no better plight. Months before a British and Arab army 
under General Allenby had captured Jerusalem. Now these 
same forces had captured two Turkish armies and had taken 
Damascus and Aleppo. The Turks thereupon asked for an 
armistice. Austria-Hungary, Germany's only other ally, was 
soon overcome and forced to cease fighting. 

The Armistice. — The German plan of conquering Europe 
had failed dismally. Part of the German armies were caught 
in a vise. The German people were beginning to revolt. 
Rather than face a worse disaster the German Government 
accepted the terms imposed by the Allies and the United 
States. This took place on November 11, 19 18, a memorable 
day in the history of mankind. 

By the terms of the armistice the Germans agreed to with- 
draw from Belgium and France, including Alsace-Lorraine, 
as well as from all other foreign territory in any part of Europe 



STEPS TOWARD PEACE 525 

which they had overrun. They were to surrender immense 
numbers of guns, aeroplanes, locomotives, and freight cars. 
The Allied armies were to occupy German territory as far as 
the Rhine. A large part of the German fleet was to be in- 
terned in neutral or Allied harbors. The final terms of peace 
were left to a Peace Congress which was to meet in Paris. 

Revolution in Germany. — As the war ended the German 
people turned in anger against the leaders who had brought 
disaster upon them. The Socialists seized the government. 
The Emperor, William II, and the Crown Prince, were forced 
to abdicate. Fearing for their lives they took refuge in 
Holland. In the different states of Germany the kings, 
princes, and dukes were deposed, and republican govern- 
ments established. In Austria-Hungary somewhat similar 
changes had already taken place. The Czechs or Bohemians, 
who had been an independent people in the Middle Ages, 
joined with the Moravians and Slovaks to form the Czecho- 
slovak republic. The Jugo- or South Slavs joined with 
Serbia in forming a large state in southern Europe. Other 
subjects of Austria or Hungary — Italians, Roumanians, and 
Poles — joined their kindred in neighboring countries — 
Italy, Roumania, the Ukraine, or Poland — without waiting 
for the Peace Congress to decide their fate. 

Steps toward Peace. — With the armistice of November 
11 fighting ceased, but peace was not fully restored. The 
German ports were still blockaded, and that part of the 
country west of the Rhine was occupied by French, British, 
and American troops. Many questions had to be decided 
before a treaty of peace could be made and all peoples could 
take up again their ordinary tasks. To talk over these 
questions a conference was called at Paris. The leading 
delegates who attended the conference were the prime 
ministers of France, Great Britain, and Italy, and the Presi- 
dent of the United States. This was the first time an Ameri- 
can president had visited a foreign land during his term of 
office. 

The three most important subjects before the conference 



526 THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 

were " reparation," new boundaries, and a league of nations. 
By the terms of the armistice the Germans had agreed to 
make " reparation," that is, pay for the ruin their armies had 
spread through Belgium and northern France. To do this 
would cost huge sums of money, and it was difficult to find 
out how much the Germans could pay and how long a time 
they should be allowed in which to pay it. Another difficult 
question was the new boundaries of Europe. The states 
which had been created or restored during the war, like- 
Czechoslovakia and Poland, or those which were to receive 
additions of territory, like Serbia and Roumania, must have 
their new frontiers marked out. Indeed the whole map of 
Europe was to be redrawn. 

Not only must peace be made, but steps must be taken to 
guard against the outbreak of new wars. For this purpose 
the victorious nations were to decide whether they would 
unite in a league, and whether they would share their task of 
maintaining peace with the peoples which had so recently 
been their enemies. 

The Peace Treaties. — The Peace Conference might have 
put all its decisions on these questions into a single great 
treaty, because the war was a single struggle, although many 
nations had fought and on fields widely separated. But the 
members of the conference concluded to prepare a treaty 
for each of the five enemy states. The treaty with the Ger- 
mans was first in importance, for Germany had been the 
leader of the Central Powers. Two treaties were needed 
for what had been the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. 
Most of its territory had been divided between Czechoslo- 
vakia, Poland, Roumania, and Jugoslavia. All that was left 
were two small republics, Austria and Hungary. Bulgaria 
and Turkey made up the five. 

The Conference met on January 18, 1 9 1 9 , but May 7 
came before the terms were ready for the Germans, and June 
28 before the complete treaty was signed. This was the 
fifth anniversary of the murder of the Archduke Franz 
Ferdinand. The ceremony of signature took place at Ver- 



THE PEACE TREATIES 527 

saflles, in the famous " Hall of Mirrors," where the German 
Empire had been proclaimed in the closing days of the 
Franco-Prussian War. 

Many months passed before the other treaties were com- 
pleted. It turned out to be harder to reconstruct the Old 
World than even the wisest had suspected. And after the 
treaties were signed their terms were not carried out imme- 
diately, because they meant the change of so many terri- 
tories from one flag to another and the payment of enormous 
sums of money by peoples which had used up most of their 
wealth in waging war. Some of the states to which the 
treaties had added a good deal of territory were still dis- 
satisfied and would not stop fighting until they had received 
more. 

According to the treaty with Germany lands which the 
Germans had taken from their neighbors were to be restored 
if the inhabitants wished to return to their old allegiance. 
In several cases the people were asked to vote on the question 
and such a vote was called a plebiscite. In other cases a 
vote was held to be unnecessary. Alsace and Lorraine were 
restored to France. Lands which had been part of the old 
kingdom of Poland, and a majority of whose population was 
Polish, were given to the new republic of Poland. In north- 
ern and central Schleswig a plebiscite decided that the north 
should unite with Denmark and that the central district 
should remain German. In all the treaty took from Germany 
territory nearly as large as the state of Ohio. 

Reparation. — The Members of the Conference were 
unable to agree upon the amount of damage which the Ger- 
mans had done during the war or upon the sum they should 
be required to pay. A special commission was given the 
task of deciding these questions by May 1, 192 1, and of 
taking measures to see that the amount was paid within 
thirty years. Part of the payment was to be taken in ships, 
coal, dyestuffs, and other products. The French received 
immediately the coal mines of the Sarre Valley, just north 
of Lorraine. To pay the rest in money it would be necessary 



5->S THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 

for the Germans to sell the products of their industry to 
other nations, and this would be difficult because the terri- 
tory which they had lost contained a large part of their iron 
mines and much of their coal. The war had destroyed their 
trade with the outside world. 

The other treaties were mostly concerned with boundaries. 
It was especially hard to draw these in eastern Europe where 
so many peoples are intermingled. The most difficult prob- 
lem of all was to find some method of preventing new wars. 

The League of Nations. — The members of the Peace 
Conference decided that the first part of the peace treaties 
should contain articles uniting the Allies in a League of 
Nations, which neutral states should be invited to join. It 
was planned that Germany and the other Central Powers 
should eventually enter the League. 

The members of this League agreed not to begin war upon 
any state until the Council of the League or a Court of Arbi- 
tration had time to decide whether the quarrel had any real 
basis and whether it could not be settled peacefully. If a 
state did start a war, in spite of this pledge, the members of 
the League promised not to trade with it. They were then 
to decide whether they should send their armies and navies 
as policemen of the world to preserve peace. 

The states which had united in the war against Germany, 
with the exception of the United States, decided to accept 
this part of the treaties also and to join in the Leaeue. 
Many neutral states also joined. 

The treaties had to be ratified by the legislatures or par- 
liaments of the different countries. According to the Con- 
stitution of the United States ratification depends upon the 
consent of two-thirds of the Senate. From the beginning 
many senators refused to pledge the United States to take 
the part in the affairs of Europe which the treaty implied. 
President Wilson explained that it would be better to unite 
with all well-disposed peoples in preventing war than to 
watch until the struggle became so terrible that we could 
no longer remain nctural. His opponents replied that the 



TASKS UF PEACE 529 

promises of the League meant that American soldiers would 
be sent to guard any frontier which might happen to be 
attacked. They felt that leaders of European states often 
had aims with which Americans did not sympathize, but 
which it would be difficult to oppose openly without serious 
offense. The controversy dragged on for months, and finally 
became the principal issue in the presidential election of 1920. 

Homeward Bound. — ■ Long before the Peace Conference 
opened the return of the American army began. By the 
terms of the armistice only a small part of it was required 
to occupy the German territory about Coblenz. The others 
could go home as soon as ships could be provided. 

The task was immense, for there were two million American 
soldiers in Europe. One great obstacle had disappeared. 
The danger of submarine attack was over. The Govern- 
ment did not at first have transports enough. In sending 
the soldiers to Europe it had secured the help of many 
British transports, but these were needed now to take back 
Canadians, Australians, and South Africans. Fortunately 
scores of cargo vessels, which as long as the war lasted had to 
carry munitions and other supplies, could be utilized as 
transports. The work of refitting them was pushed forward 
so vigorously that many were ready in a month. Battle- 
ships and cruisers were also used to bring the soldiers home. 
Half a million had returned by the end of March, 1919. In 
the month of May alone over 330,000 came back, or 25,000 
more than had been taken across in any month of the war. 

.The soldiers were eagerly awaited by their fellow-citizens. 
In many cities returning regiments marched through the 
streets hailed by throngs which filled the sidewalks and 
windows of the houses. In New York a triumphal arch was 
erected at the junction of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. 
Under this arch and up Fifth Avenue the returning New York 
divisions marched. 

Tasks of Peace. — These veterans from overseas, as 
well as their comrades in the forts and camps of the United 
States, returned to#ie tasks of peace as quickly as had the 



53© THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR 

armies of the Civil War. The industries in which they had 
been engaged had difficult problems to solve. Many of 
them had been devoted during the war to the manufacture 
of arms, munitions, and war material. The need for these 
things stopped suddenly with the armistice. To change 
factories and mills over to former occupations and to find 
markets for goods in a world where all seemed to be chaos 
might have been thought impossible. Nevertheless the 
task was successfully accomplished. 

America's New Tasks. — The wiser American leaders were 
not content to put everything back where it had been before 
the war. They desired to make their country more than 
ever a land of opportunity for all her sons and daughters. 
They talked about adding to our national domain by irri- 
gating waste lands or draining marshes or clearing for the 
plow lands on which the forest trees had been cut. They 
proposed new methods of organizing industry in order that 
employer and employee should have a stronger common 
interest in the success of the enterprise. These are the 
pioneers of a new age. 

There is still another task. All have had a share in the 
government of our country, but many have been too eager 
to organize industries, or manage trade, or open mines, to 
do their full share as citizens of a self-governing nation. 
Without the help of all, the government of even a republic 
may fall into the hands of a few. The task here is one of 
" conservation," guarding the liberties won by men of past 
generations. It is also one of progress, that the life of 
cities may be more wholesome, that the rewards of work 
in city and country may be distributed more fairly, and 
that justice and brotherhood may be the watchword alike 
of city, state, and nation. 

Questions 

i . What part did the American navy have in the war ? 

2. How did the United States make a great army? 

j. How did the United States train the men for the new army? 



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 531 

What organizations helped the officers in caring for the soldiers ? What 
was done for the welfare of the men ? 

4. What preparations were necessary in France ? 

5. What part did the American people at home have in the Euro- 
pean war ? What part did the women and children take ? 

6. How did the United States secure food, fuel, ships, and money 
for the war ? 

7. Where did American soldiers have a large share in the fighting 
of the last year of the war ? 

8. What changes in government took place in Germany and 
Austria- Hungary toward the end of the war? 

9. What were the terms of the armistice? 

10. What important questions were discussed at the Paris Peace 
Conference ? 

11. What lands did Germany and Austria-Hungary lose in the 
treaty of peace? What was done about the payment of damages or 
reparation? What did the nations who joined the League of Nations 
agree to do ? 

12. What problems did the United States have in returning to peace 
conditions? Who are the pioneers of the new age? 

Exercises 

1. Prepare from this chapter a list of the tasks of the United States 
in getting ready for the war. 

2. Secure pictures of the training camps. 

3. Obtain a story of the experience of a sailor on a merchant ship 
torpedoed by a German submarine. 

4. Secure one or more stories of the share of the American navy 
in the war. Also of American soldiers. 

5. Make a map locating the American battles in the war. 

Important Date. 

November 11, 19 18. The end of the World War. 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF AMERICAN 
POLITICAL HISTORY 

1776. The English colonies declared their independence of Great Britain, and 
at the same time took steps to secure aid from France, and to form a 
permanent union. 

1778. France formed an alliance with the united colonies, supplying them 
with money and assisting them further with her navy and army in the war 
against Great Britain for independence. 

1781. The Continental Congress had drawn up a constitution, the Articles 
of Confederation, and submitted it to the thirteen states. They adopted 
the new government which joined them together as the United States with 
a Congress as the chief organ of government. 

1783. Great Britain agreed to a treaty of peace with the United States and her 
ally, France, recognizing the independence of her former colonies and 
their union as the United States. 

1783-89. Period of the Confederation. The United States included a 
total area of 892,135 square miles. About 3,250,000 people lived in the 
new republic. Of these only a few thousand lived west of the mountains. 
One-fifth of the people of the United States were negro slaves. 

The states with western lands gave up most of them to the United 
States, to be used for the benefit of all the people. Congress adopted for 
these lands a system of surveying into townships, sections, and quarters, 
and began the practice of using a portion of the land for the support 
of education. In 1787, by the so-called "Ordinance of 1787," Congress 
adopted a form of government for its territories in the West, made promises 
about the admission of these into the Union, and other promises to the 
inhabitants about their rights. 

In 1787 a convention at Philadelphia framed a new Constitution for 
the United States. This Constitution gave the United States more power 
and created three branches of government — a Congress, a President, and 
a Supreme Court — in place of the one-house Congress of the Articles of 
Confederation. Eleven states adopted this, and, although North Carolina 
and Rhode Island did not yet do so, abandoned the old constitution 
for the new one. The new government was organized in March and 
April, 1789. 

1789-97. George Washington, First President. Under the new Constitu- 
tion it was the duty of men called electors to choose the President and 



11 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF 

Vice-President. In some states the people chose the electors, in others 
the state legislatures chose them. The first body of electors voted unani- 
mously for General Washington of Virginia for President. They chose 
John Adams of Massachusetts Vice-President, though not by a unani- 
mous vote. Ten amendments guarding the rights of the people and 
the states were adopted in December, 1701. In 1792 Washington was 
again chosen President and John Adams Vice-President. While Wash- 
ington was President five states were admitted to the Union. These 
were North Carolina in 1789, Rhode Island in 1790, Vermont in 1791, 
Kentucky in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796, making at this time 16 states 
in the Republic. In 1790 the first census or count of the population was 
taken. It showed a total of almost 4,000,000 people in the United States. 
Of these about 110,000 lived west of the mountains. Out of every 100 
inhabitants three lived in cities. It required the greater part of Wash- 
ington's first term and much of his second to organize the new govern- 
ment and decide upon its policies. Two questions were the payment of 
state debts and the creation of a Bank of the United States. It was not 
long before his advisers and even the people as a whole were divided into 
two political parties over these questions. One party was called the Fed- 
eralist and the other the Democratic or Republican party. Washington 
preferred the views of the Federalists. Hamilton and Adams were the real 
leaders of the Federalists. Jefferson and Madison were the leaders of the 
Republicans. Washington refused to be a candidate for a third term. 

1797-1801. John Adams. The electors were closely divided between the 
Federalist candidate, John Adams, and the Republican, Thomas Jefferson 
of Virginia. Adams had a majority of three votes. In those days the 
one receiving the next number became Vice-President. An eleventh 
amendment on the powers of the Supreme Court was adopted in 1798. 
The Federalists had trouble with France, and were obliged to prepare for 
war. This led them to pass laws for heavy taxes and other laws like the 
Alien and Sedition Acts. Both kinds of laws were unpopular with the 
majority of the people. 

1801-09. Thomas Jefferson. In the election in 1800 the Republican 
electors had a clear majority. It happened, however, that their two 
candidates, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and Aaron Burr of New York, 
had the same number of votes. The House of Representatives had to 
decide the question which of them should be President. It chose Thomas 
Jefferson. Burr became Vice-President. After this experience a twelfth 
amendment was passed in 1804, changing the method of voting for Presi- 
dent and Vice-President, so that the electors should vote separately for 
each. One new state, Ohio, was admitted in 1803. In the same year 
Jefferson purchased Louisiana for $15,000,000. As Louisiana had an area 
of 827,987 square miles, the cost was about three cents an acre. Jef- 
ferson was so popular that he obtained a great majority in the election in 



AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY iii 

1804. George Clinton of New York became Vice-President. Jefferson's 
last years as President were made unhappy by the troubles with England 
and France, and the necessity of taking measures to protect American 
rights and trade. Jefferson, like Washington, refused to be a candidate 
for a third term. He wished his Secretary of State, James Madison of 
Virginia, to succeed him as President, and such a wish counted with his 
Republican followers. 

1809-17. James Madison. Madison became President in 1809. The 
Republicans were still in a great majority over the Federalists. George 
Clinton was reelected Vice-President. The population of the country was 
increasing rapidly. In the census of 1800 it was 5,308,483. In the census 
of 1810 it was a third larger, or 7,239,881. Two years later, 1812, Louisi- 
ana was admitted as a state in the Union, making the eighteenth state. 

In June, 181 2, war was begun with England. An election occurred 
during the war. Madison was reelected President. Elbridge Gerry of 
Massachusetts was Vice-President. War measures formed the chief 
subject of laws until 1815. In 1816 a second Bank of the United States 
was chartered, and a new state, Indiana, taken into the Union. The 
Federalist party had nearly broken up, and in the election of this year 
was able to offer almost no opposition to the Republican candidate. 

1817-26. James Monroe. Monroe had been Madison's Secretary of State, 
and had the President's support in the election. Monroe, too, was from 
Virginia. It looked as though Virginia had a monopoly in furnishing 
Presidents. The new Vice-President was Daniel D. Tompkins of New 
York. Beginning with the admission of Indiana, in 1816, one new state 
was added each year for six years until there were altogether twenty-four 
states. The new ones were Mississippi in 181 7, Illinois in 181 8, Alabama 
in 1819, Maine in 1820, and Missouri in 1821. First one from the South, 
and then one from the North, each time keeping the balance even. A 
great compromise upon slavery was made with the entrance of Maine 
and Missouri: this was that the remaining territory of the Louisiana 
Purchase should be divided; that the portion north of the line 36 30' 
was never to allow slavery, while that south might. Monroe was reelected 
in 1820. His opponent received only one electoral vote. Tompkins 
was also again chosen Vice-President. In 1819 the United States pur- 
chased Florida — a territory of 72,101 square miles, but sparsely settled — 
from Spain for about $5,000,000. The census of 1820 showed that the 
population was 9,638,453, or about three times that of 1783. Now more 
than 2,250,000 people lived west of the Alleghany Mountains. The event 
of Monroe's administration most often remembered was the announce- 
ment in 1823 that the United States would oppose any effort of European 
countries either to establish any new colonies in North or South America 
or any interference with the freedom of the states already formed there. 
This was the Monroe Doctrine. 



iv CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF 

1825-29. John Qltncy Adams. When the election of 1824 came on the 
Federalist party had almost entirely disappeared. The Republican party 
was divided into several factions, each supporting its favored leader. The 
vote for Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams was very close. Neither 
had a majority of all the votes cast for President. The House of Represen- 
tatives for a second time decided the question, electing Adams. He was 
a son of the second President, and, like his father, was from Massachusetts. 
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina became Vice-President. Adams had 
been Monroe's Secretary of State. He was greatly interested in maintain- 
ing the Monroe Doctrine and promoting the building of roads and 
canals. 

1829-37. Andrew Jackson. The friends of Andrew Jackson thought he had 
been cheated out of the Presidency in 1824, and bent every effort to secure 
his election in 1828. The Republicans gradually divided into two parties, 
the followers of Jackson and of Adams and Clay. Jackson was triumphant 
and Calhoun was again elected Vice-President. The followers of Jackson 
were coming to be known by their other name, Democrats, and began 
to drop the name Republicans. The followers of Adams took the name 
Whigs. In the election of 1832 the candidates for President were 
nominated, not as formerly by a caucus of the members of each party in 
Congress, but by a national convention of delegates from the states. 
Jackson was very popular with the people and was easily reelected. 
Martin Van Buren of New York became Vice-President. The census of 
1830 reported a population of 12,866,020. Two states, the 25th and 
the 26th, Arkansas in 1836 and Michigan in 1837, came in during Jack- 
son's administration. Jackson wished his party to make the Vice-President 
his successor as President, and his will prevailed. 

1837-41. Martin Van Buren. In 1836 the Democrats were again success- 
ful. Besides Van Buren as President, they chose Richard M. Johnson 
of Kentucky Vice-President. Van Buren's party was blamed for the 
panic of 1837, and so for the first time in over thirty years was defeated 
in the next election. 

1841-46. William Henry Harrison and John Tyler. The Whig candidates 
in 1840 were William Henry Harrison of Ohio for President, and John 
Tyler of Virginia for Vice-President. The census gave a population of 
17,069,453. Harrison died four weeks after he became President. Tyler 
at once became President, to serve out the term. Just before Tyler's term 
ended in 1845, it was decided to annex Texas. This was the addition of 
389,166 square miles of territory. Florida, which was admitted about 
the same time, and Texas made twenty-eight states in the Uniom 

1846-49. James K. Polk. The Whig triumph was of short duration. In 
1845 the Democrats elected their candidate, James K. Polk of Tennessee 
President, and George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania Vice-President. The 
greater part of President Polk's single term as President was taken up with 



AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY v 

the trouble with Mexico which ended in war. Iowa was admitted in 
1846 and Wisconsin in 1848. These again made equal the number of 
states with slavery and those without slavery. By a treaty with Great 
Britain in 1846 the United States retained part of the Oregon Coun- 
try, 286,541 square miles. At the end of the Mexican War 529,189 square 
miles more territory were acquired. This included California and the 
territory from which Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and part of Colorado and 
New Mexico have been formed. In the treaty which ended the war and 
provided for the annexation of the southwestern region, the United 
States paid Mexico a little over $15,000,000. 

1849-50. Zachary Taylor. The Whigs were successful in the election of 
1848. They had named as their candidate one who had become a hero in 
the Mexican War, General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana. Millard Fill- 
more of New York was their candidate for Vice-President. President 
Taylor died in 1850, a year and four months after his term began. The 
Vice-President for the second time in American history became Presi- 
dent by the death of the President. 

1850-53. Millard Fillmore. In 1850 there were 23,191,876 people in the 
United States. The year 1850 was more important for the compromise 
made by Congress over the slavery question. The aim of one part of the 
Compromise was to please the North by the abolition of the slave trade 
in the District of Columbia, and another part to please the South by 
securing the return of fugitive slaves. By another part the territory 
lying between Texas and California was to have slavery or not, as the 
inhabitants should decide. By still another part California was admitted 
into the Union without slavery. Wisconsin had been admitted in 1848. 
There were now thirty-one states. Those without slavery outnumbered 
those with it. In 1853 the United States purchased a tract of territory, 
29,670 square miles, from Mexico, in order to round out the southern 
boundary. Mexico received $10,000,000. 

1853-57. Franklin Pierce. The Democrats regained power in the election 
of 1852. Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire became President, and 
William R. King of Alabama Vice-President. The repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise in 1854 and the application of the rule that Kansas 
and Nebraska, like the Southwest, might have slaves if the inhabitants 
wished and so voted, led to the formation of a new political party. This 
party, the Republican, was bent on keeping the territories for free laborers 
rather than slaves. The Whig party, like the Federalist, gradually broke 
up; its members went over to one of the other parties, chiefly to the 
Republicans. This made it easy for the Democrats again to win in the 
election of 1856, in spite of the unpopularity in the North of the Kansas 
and Nebraska Act. 

1857-61. James Buchanan. The Democratic victor in the election of 1856 
was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. The new Vice-President was 



vi CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF 

John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Buchanan's term was taken up 
chiefly with the great dispute over slavery. One event after another 
arrayed the North and South against each other. The Dred Scott 
decision in 1857 and the John Brown Raid in 1859 were the most serious 
events in the growth of the trouble. In 1858 Minnesota was admitted, 
and the following year Oregon made the thirty-third state. The count 
of population just before the Civil War showed a total of 31,443,321. 
This was almost exactly ten times the number in 1783. Of the total 
population the slave-holding states had 12,240,000 people; 3,950,000 of 
these were slaves. The North had 19,201,546. The area of the fifteen 
slave-holding states was 882,245 an d of the free states 824,622 square miles 
The greater part of the territories, however, could be counted as sure to 
become free states, and this made the area of the region opposed to 
slavery about double the area of that favorable to it. 

1861-66. Abraham Lincoln. The new, or Republican, party won in the 
election of i860, chiefly because the Democratic party was hopelessly 
divided over the slavery question. The Republican candidate for Presi- 
dent was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, and for Vice-President Hannibal 
Hamlin of Maine. Just before Lincoln became President seven southern 
states seceded. Soon afterward four more united in a Southern Con- 
federacy. Almost the entire period of Lincoln's Presidency was occupied 
with the Civil War. Three new states were formed during the War. 
These were Kansas in 1861, West Virginia in 1863 (from the western part 
of Virginia), and Nevada in 1864. Lincoln was reelected for a second 
term in 1864. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was at this time chosen 
Vice-President. One month and ten days after Lincoln began his second 
term he was assassinated, and Andrew Johnson became President. 

1865-69. Andrew Johnson. The new President and Congress quarreled 
over the manner of reorganizing the states which had seceded and of set- 
tling the questions which had arisen as a result of the war. Two amend- 
ments were quickly added to the Constitution. The 13th amendment 
in 1865 forbade slavery within the United States. The 14th amendment 
in 1868 was intended, among other things, to prevent the states from 
abridging the rights of citizens whether white or black. In the same 
year Congress impeached President Johnson and so attempted to remove 
him from office. Nebraska joined the Union in 1867, and Alaska was 
purchased from Russia. The purchase of Alaska cost $7,200,000, and 
added 590,884 square miles of territory to the United States. 

1869-77. Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois became President in 1869, and Schuyler 
Colfax of Indiana Vice-President. They were elected by the Republi- 
cans. In 1870 the 15th amendment became a part of the Constitution. 
By this the states were forbidden to restrict the right to vote on the ground 
of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The United States 
now had a population of 38,558,371. Grant was reelected in 1872, 



AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY vii 

with Henry Wilson of Massachusetts Vice-President. Colorado was 
admitted in 1876. Congress throughout Grant's two terms was still 
much occupied with the questions which had grown out of the Civil War 
• — reconstruction in the South and management of the national debt. 

1877-81. Rutherford B. Hayes. In the election of 1876 the Republicans 
put forward as candidates Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio for President, 
and William A. Wheeler of New York for Vice-President. The Republi- 
can candidates had only one electoral vote more than their opponents. 
In reality Samuel J. Tilden of New York and T. A. Hendricks of Indiana 
the Democratic candidates, had more votes of the people, and would 
have won if the people voted directly for President. The census of 1880 
gave the population of the United States as 50,155,783. 

1881-85. James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. In 1880 the Re- 
publicans had a larger vote than in 1876, though the contest between 
them and the Democrats was still close. James A. Garfield of Ohio 
and Chester A. Arthur of New York became President and Vice- 
President respectively. Garfield was shot by an assassin, July 2, 1881; 
he died September 19; and Arthur became President. One landmark in 
legislation of the period was the Act of 1883 requiring examination foT 
many federal appointments. This was the Civil Service Reform Act. 

1885-89. Grover Cleveland. For the first time since the Civil War the 
Democratic party won in the election of 1884. Grover Cleveland of New 
York became President the next year, and Thomas A. Hendricks oi 
Indiana Vice-President. In 1887 Congress passed the Interstate Com- 
merce Act for the regulation chiefly of railroad rates on commerce going 
from state to state. 

1889-93. Benjamin Harrison. The Democrats remained in power only 
one term. The Republican candidates in the election of 1888 were suc- 
cessful. They were Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, President, and Levi 
P. Morton of New York, Vice-President. In this case, as in that of 
Hayes, the majority of the electors voted for Harrison, but the majority 
of the people voted for his opponent, Grover Cleveland. The principal 
laws of the time were about the larger use of silver as money and about 
the tariff. Several new states were formed from the western territory — 
chiefly from the old Louisiana territory — North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Montana, and Washington in 1889, and Idaho and Wyoming in 1890. 
The number brought the United States up to a total of forty-four states, 
where it remained until 1896. The total population in the census of 
1890 was 62,947,714. 

1893-97. Grover Cleveland. After four years out of the Presidency, 
Grover Cleveland returned as a result of the election in 1892. The 
Democratic party had again won. The new Vice-President was Adlai 
E. Stevenson of Illinois. One new state, Utah, was admitted in 1896 
while Cleveland was President. 



viii CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF 

1897 1901. William McKinley. In the election of 1896 it was the turn 
of the Republicans to win. Their candidates, William McKinley of 
Ohio and Garret A. Hobart of New Jersey, became President and Vice- 
President. In 1898 the United States was at war with Spain. During 
the war the Hawaiian Islands were annexed. They have an area, alto- 
gether, of 6449 square miles. At the end of the war, by the treaty with 
Spain, Guam, Porto Rico, and the Philippines were acquired. Guam 
has an area of 210 square miles, Porto Rico of 3,435 square miles, and 
the Philippines 115,026 square miles. The United States paid Spain 
$20,000,000, but this amount in no sense represents the cost of the new 
possessions. The war with Spain cost the United States many times 
$20,000,000. In 1899 the Samoan Islands were divided between the 
United States and Germany. The United States was given six islands 
with an area of seventy-seven square miles. In the census of 1900 the 
United States was found to have a population of 75,994,575, not counting 
the island inhabitants. President McKinley was reelected in 1900. 
Theodore Roosevelt of Xew York became Vice-President. Six months 
after McKinley's second term began he was assassinated, and Roosevelt 
became President, to finish the term of three years and six months. 

190109. Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt completed McKinley's 
term, and in 1904 was elected President. Charles \V. Fairbanks 
of Indiana was chosen Vice-President. The arrangement with Great 
Britain and Panama by which the United States acquired control of a 
zone ten miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama and the power to build 
a canal, was one of the most important events of the time. In 1902 the 
government began the work of irrigating parts of the deserts of the West 
The passage of laws (1) to protect the people against impure foods, (2) 
to obtain more thorough railway rate regulation, and (3) to protect the 
nation's forests and streams from ruin, made the period an epoch in Amer- 
ican history. In 1907 Oklahoma became a state in the United States. 

1909-13. William H. Taft. In 1908 William H. Taft of Ohio, a Republican, 
was chosen President, and James S. Sherman of Xew York Vice-President. 
President Taft extended the plan of merit tests for many clerks and assis- 
tant postmasters in government service. The Republican party was, how- 
ever, so divided on the great questions of the day, tariff reform and 
caring for the country's natural resources, that few important laws were 
passed. Congress and the President, however, did agree on two mem- 
orable laws. By one in 191 1 a postal savings system was established; by 
another in 1913 the post office was also authorized to carry parcels of a 
moderate weight. In 191 2 two states, formed from the territory obtained 
from Mexico in 1848, were admitted. These, Xew Mexico and Arizona, 
brought the total number of states to forty-eight. The population by the 
census of 1910 was 91,972,266, not including the island possessions. The 
area in square miles is about 3,617,673. 



AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY ix 

1913-1921. Woodrow Wilson. In the election of 1912 the Republican party- 
was divided. The Convention renominated President Taft. Many Re- 
publican delegates joined with others in a Progressive party, which tried to 
elect former President Roosevelt. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, whom 
the Democrats nominated for President, was chosen, with Thomas R. Mar- 
shall of Indiana for Vice-President. Just before Taft's term expired the 
announcement was made that a 16th amendment had become law. This 
gave Congress power to tax incomes. A few weeks after the inauguration 
of President Wilson a 17th amendment was added to the Constitution. It 
changed the method of electing the Senators of the United States, who had 
hitherto been selected by the state legislatures. Under the new plan the peo- 
ple vote directly for them as they do for the members of the House of Rep- 
resentatives. President Wilson's first work was an attempt to carry out 
his party's pledges. The most famous law for this purpose was a new tariff 
act which reduced the taxes on imports. In 1914 a Federal Reserve Bank 
system was established and steps taken to build a government railroad in 
Alaska. Within the same year the Panama Canal was practically com- 
pleted. This was the year when a Great War began in Europe. The es- 
tablishment of the Federal Farm Loan Banks and the re-election of Presi- 
dent Wilson in 1916, the order of the President for the choice of postmas- 
ters for merit rather than for political services, and the entry of the United 
States into the European War because German submarines destroyed Amer- 
ican merchant ships are events also to be remembered. The War with 
Germany ended with an armistice November 11, 1918. The purchase of 
the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 191 7 added an important station for 
American ships. Of the laws of Congress during the closing years of Presi- 
dent Wilson's time the Cummins-Esch Act of 1920 for the regulation of 
the railroads was the most important. Two amendments were added to 
the constitution at this time, the 18th in 1919 prohibited the manufacture 
and sale of intoxicating liquors, the 19th in 1920 extended suffrage to women 
on the same terms as to men. 

1921- . Warren G. Harding. In the election of 1920 Warren G. Hard- 
ing of Ohio was chosen President, and Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts 
Vice-President. The census of 1920 showed a total population of 105,708,- 
771 for the continental United States. The outlying or island possessions 
had 12,148,738 more, a grand total of 117,857,509 people. 



POPULATION 

Population at the Beginning 01 hie Period of Independence 
Entire United States 

'776 2,750,000 1783 3,250,000 1790 3,929,214 

Population by States from First Census — 1790 

Connecticut . . 237,946 Maine ' 96,540 Rhode Island 68,825 

Delaware. . . . 59,096 New Hampshire 141,885 South Carolina 249,073 

Georgia 82,548 New Jersey. . . . 184,139 Tennessee 1 . . . 35,691 

Kentucky 1 . . . 73,677 New York 340,120 Vermont 1 . . . . 85,425 

Maryland. . . . 319,728 North Carolina 393,751 Virginia 747,610 

Massachusetts 378,787 Pennsylvania.. 434,373 

Area and Population of the States and Territories of the 
United States. 1920 

Slates Area in square miles Population in 1920 

Alabama 51,998 2,348,174 

Arizona 1 13.956 333.903 

Arkansas 53.335 1,752,204 

California 158,297 3,426,861 

Colorado [03,948 939,629 

Connecticut 4,965 1,380,631 

Delaware 2,370 223,003 

Florida 58,666 968,470 

Georgia 59.265 2,895,^ 

Idaho 83,888 431,866 

Illinois 56,665 6,485,280 

Indiana 36,354 2,930,390 

Iowa 56,147 2,404,021 

Kansas 82,158 1,769,257 

Kentucky 40,598 2,416,630 

Louisiana 48,506 1 ,798,509 

Maine 33,°4° 768,014 

Maryland 12,327 1,449,661 

Massachusetts 8,266 3,852,356 

Michigan 57,9^0 3,668,412 

1 In 1790 these were only territories. 



POPULATION XI 

States Area in square miles Population in 1920 

Minnesota 84,682 2,387,126 

Mississippi 46,865 1,790,618 

Missouri 69,420 3,404,055 

Montana 146,997 548,889 

Nebraska 77. 520 1,296,372 

Nevada 1 10,690 77,407 

New Hamsphire 9,34* 443,083 

New Jersey 8,224 3, I 75,9°o 

New Mexico 122,634 360,350 

New York 49,204 10,384,820 

North Carolina 52,426 2,559,123 

North Dakota 70,837 645,680 

Ohio 41,040 5,759,394 

Oklahoma 70,057 2,028,283 

Oregon 96,699 783,389 

Pennsylvania 45,126 8,720,017 

Rhode Island 1,248 604,397 

South Carolina 30,989 1,683,724 

South Dakota 77,615 636,547 

Tennessee 42,022 2,337,885 

Texas 265,896 4,663,228 

Utah 84,990 449,396 

Vermont 9,564 352,428 

Virginia 42,627 2,309,187 

Washington 69,127 1,356,621 

West Virginia 24,170 1,463,701 

Wisconsin 56,066 2,632,067 

Wyoming ." 97,9*4 194,402 

Alaska 590,884 54,899 

District of Columbia 70 437, 571 

Guam 210 13,275 

Hawaii 6,449 255,912 

Panama Canal Zone 436 22,858 

Philippine Islands 115,026 10,350,640 

Porto Rico 3,435 I, 297, 772 

Samoa 77 8,056 

Virgin Islands 390 26,051 

Total of United States and its 

, possessions 3,743,696 117,857,509 



xii POPULATION 

i i n Leading Cities 





1920 


1910 




1920 


1910 


New York . . . 


5,620,048 


4,766,883 


St. Louis. . . . 


772,897 


687,029 


Chicago 


2,701,705 


2,185,283 


Boston 


748,060 


670,585 


Philadelphia.. 


1,823,779 


1,549,008 


Baltimore. . . 


733,826 


558,485 


Detroit 


993.678 


465,766 


Pittsburgh. . 


■ 588,343 


533,905 


Cleveland 


796,841 


560,663 


Los Angeles 


• 576,673 


319,198 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

In Congress, July 4, 1776 
A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress 

Assembled 

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people 
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and 
to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to 
which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to 
the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which 
impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure 
these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government 
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to 
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such 
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most 
likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that 
governments long established should not be changed for light and transient 
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more dis- 
posed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing 
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and 
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce 
them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such 
government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has 
been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which 
constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of 
the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- 
tions, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over 
these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the 
public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing im- 
portance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; 
and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts 



xiv DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in 
the legislature, — a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, 
and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of 
fatiguing them into compliance with his measure. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly 
firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be 
elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned 
to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, 
exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that pur- 
pose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass 
others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new 
appropriations of lands. 

Pie has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to 
laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, 
and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers 
to harass our people and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent 
of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the 
civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our 
constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts 
of pretended legislation: 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; 

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which 
they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent; 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; 

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses; 

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province 
establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, 
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same 
absolute rule into these colonies; 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, 
fundamentally, the forms of our governments; 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with 
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

lie lias abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and 
waging war against us. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE xv 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and de- 
stroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete 
the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances 
af cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally 
unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, takeri captive on the high seas, to 
bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and 
brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring 
on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known 
rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most 
humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated 
injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may 
define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We 
have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend 
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the cir- 
cumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their 
native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of 
our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably 
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to 
the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the 
necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest 
of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General 
Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the recti- 
tude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people 
of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united colonies are, 
and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved 
from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection be- 
tween them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; 
and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, 
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts 
and things which independent states may of right do. And, for the support 
of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, 
we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States 
of America. 

ARTICLE 1 

Section I. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Represent- 
atives. 

Sect. II. i. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members 
chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors 
in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most 
numerous branch of the State Legislature. 

2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the 
age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, 
and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he 
shall be chosen. 

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several 
States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective 
numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free 
persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration 
shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the 
United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner 
as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed 
one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representa- 
tive; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire 
shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Penn- 
sylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, 
South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the Execu- 
tive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other 
officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Sect. III. 1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xvii 

Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and 
each Senator shall have one vote. 

2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first 
election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The 
seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the 
second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the 
third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one third may be chosen 
every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation or otherwise, during 
the recess of the legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make 
temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall 
then fill such vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of 
thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall 
not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 

4. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, 
but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro 
tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office 
of President of the United States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When 
sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the Presi- 
dent of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no person 
shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present. 

7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to 
removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, 
trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall never- 
theless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, 
according to law. 

Sect. IV. 1. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators 
and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; 
but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except 
as to the places of choosing Senators. 

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting 
shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint 
a diff erent» day. 

Sect. V. 1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and 
qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a 
quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, 
and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such 
manner, and under such penalties, as each house may provide. 

2. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members 
for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member. 

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time 
publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; 



xviii CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall, 
at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. 

4. Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent 
of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that 
in which the two houses shall be sitting. 

Sect. VI. 1. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensa- 
tion for their services, to be ascertained by law and paid out of the treasury of 
the United States. They shall in all cases except treason, felony and breach 
of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session 
of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and 
for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any 
other place. 

2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was 
elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, 
which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been 
increased, during such time; and no person holding any office under the United 
States shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office. 

Sect. VII. 1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as 
on other bills. 

2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the 
Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the 
United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with 
his objections to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter 
the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after 
such reconsideration two thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it 
shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall 
likewise be reconsidered, and, if approved by two thirds of that house, it shall 
become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be deter- 
mined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against 
the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house respectively. If any bill 
shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after 
it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if 
he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return , 
in which case it shall not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate 
and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of 
adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and 
before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved 
by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 

Sect. VIII. The Congress shall have power 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts 
and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xix 

but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United 
States; 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States; 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several 
States, and with the Indian tribes; 

4. To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the 
subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix 
the standard of weights and measures; 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current 
coin of the United States; 

7. To establish post offices and post roads; 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited 
times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings 
and discoveries; 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; 

10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas 
and offences against the law of nations; 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules 
concerning captures on land and water; 

12. To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use 
shall be for a longer term than two years; 

13. To provide and maintain a navy; 

14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval 
forces; 

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; 

16. To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United 
States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and 
the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by 
Congress; 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such dis- 
trict (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, 
and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United 
States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent 
of the legislature of the State, in which the same shall be, for the erection of 
forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings; — and 

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitu- 
tion in the government of the United States, or in any department or office 
thereof. 

Sect. IX. 1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the 



xx CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

Congress prior to the year 1808; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such 
importation, not exceeding $10 for each person. 

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless 
when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. 

3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

4. No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to 
the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 

6. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue 
to the ports of one State over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or 
from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. 

7. No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of ap- 
propriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts 
and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. 

8. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person 
holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of 
the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind 
whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 

Sect. X. 1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; 
grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make 
anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill 
of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or 
grant any title of nobility. 

2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or 
duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for 
executing its inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, 
laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of 
the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control 
of the Congress. 

3. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, 
keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or com- 
pact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless 
actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 

ARTICLE II 

Section I. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four 
years, and together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, 
be elected as follows: 

2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may 
direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator 
or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United 
States, shall be appointed an elector 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xxi 

[The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two 
persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with 
themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the 
number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit 
sealed to the seat of government of the United States, directed to the President 
of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate 
and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then 
be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the 
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors ap- 
pointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an 
equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately 
choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, 
then from the five highest on the list the said house shall in like manner choose 
the President. But in choosing the President the votes shall be taken by 
States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this 
purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, 
and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, 
after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes 
of the electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or 
more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the 
Vice-President.] 

3. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors and the 
day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same through- 
out the United States. 

4. No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, 
at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office 
of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not 
have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident 
within the United States. 

5. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death, resigna- 
tion, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same 
shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the Congress may by law provide for 
the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and 
Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such 
officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall 
be elected. 

6. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensa- 
tion, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for 
which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period 
any other emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

7. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following 
oath or affirmation: — "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully 
execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my 
ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." 



xxii CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

Sect. II. i. The President shall be commander in chief of the army and 
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called 
into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in 
writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any 
subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power 
to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except 
in cases of impeachment. 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he 
shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall 
appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme 
Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not 
herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the 
Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they 
think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of 
departments. 

3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen 
during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at 
the end of their next session. 

Sect. III. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of 
the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures 
as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, 
convene both houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between 
them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such 
time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public 
ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall 
commission all the officers of the United States. 

Sect. IV. The President, Vice-President and all civil officers of the United 
States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and on conviction 
of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. 

ARTICLE III 

Section I. 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress may from time to 
time ordain and estabUsh. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior 
courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, 
receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during 
their continuance in office. 

Sect. II. 1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, 
arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made 
or which shall be made, under their authority; — to all cases affecting ambassa- 
dors, other public ministers and consuls; — to all cases of admiralty jurisdic- 
tion; — to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; — to 
controversies between two or more States; — between a State and citizens of 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xxiii 

another State; — between citizens of different States; — between citizens of 
the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a 
State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects. 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, 
and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have 
original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme 
Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such ex- 
ceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; 
and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been 
committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at 
such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed. 

Sect. III. 1. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying 
war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. 
No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses 
to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but 
no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except 
during the life of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE IV 

Section I. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public 
acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress 
may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and 
proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. 

Sect. II. 1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who 
shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of the 
executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be 
removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, 
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, 
be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be due. 

Sect. III. 1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; 
but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other 
State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts 
of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well 
as of the Congress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the 
United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to 
prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State. 



xx iv CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

Sect. IV. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union 
a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against in- 
vasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the 
legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence. 

ARTICLE V 

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, 
shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the 
legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for pro- 
posing amendments, which, in either case shall be valid to all intents and pur- 
poses, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three 
fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the 
one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided 
that no amendments which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the 
ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall 
be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

ARTICLE VI 

i. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption 
of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this 
Constitution, as under the Confederation. 

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made 
in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the 
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the 
judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or 
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members 
of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of 
the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirma- 
tion, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required 
as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. 

ARTICLE VII 

The ratification of the conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the 
establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same. 

Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the 
seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven 
hundred and eighty-seven and of the Independence of the United States of 
America the twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our 
names. 
iSignod by] O Washington 

Presidl and Deputy from Virginia 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xxv 

Articles in Addition to and Amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified 
by the Legislatures of the Several States, Pursuant to the 
Fifth Article of the Original Constitution 1 

Article I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and 
to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

Article II. A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a 
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. 

Article III. No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house 
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be 
prescribed by law. 

Article IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 
violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by 
oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and 
the persons or things to be seized. 

Article V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury except 
in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual 
service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the 
same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled 
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property 
be taken for public use without just compensation. 

Article VI. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right 
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district 
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been 
previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of 
the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have 
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assist- 
ance of counsel for his defence. 

Article VII. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact 
tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, 
than according to the rules of the common law. 

Article VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines 
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

Article IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall 
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

Article X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 

1 The first ten Amendments were adopted in 1791. 



xxvi CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

stitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respec- 
tively, or to the people. 

Article XI. The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed 
to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one 
of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of 
any foreign state. [Adopted in 1798.] 

Article XII. The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote 
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be 
an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their 
ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person 
voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons 
voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of 
the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and 
transmit sealed to the seat of government of the United States, directed to 
the President of the Senate; — the President of the Senate shall, in the pres- 
ence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and 
the votes shall then be counted; — the person having the greatest number of 
votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the 
whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then 
from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of 
those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose im- 
mediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes 
shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; 
a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds 
of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. 
And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever 
the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March 
next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the 
death or other constitutional disability of the President. — The person having 
the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if 
such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if 
no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the 
Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist 
of two thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole 
number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible 
to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United 
States. [Adopted in 1804.] 

Article XIII. Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, 
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their juris- 
diction. 

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate 
legislation. [Adopted in 1865.] 

Article XIV. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xxvii 

States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States 
and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law 
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protec- 
tion of the laws. 

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States 
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons 
in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any 
election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United 
States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a 
State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male 
inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the 
United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or 
other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the propor- 
tion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of 
male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or 
Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, 
under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an 
oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a 
member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any 
State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in 
insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies 
thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two thirds of each house, remove such 
disability. 

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized 
by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for 
services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But 
neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obliga- 
tion incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any 
claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, 
and claims shall be held illegal and void. 

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legisla- 
tion the provisions of this article. [Adopted in 1867.] 

Article XV. Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account 
of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appro- 
priate legislation. [Adopted in 1870.] 

Article XVI. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on 
incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the sev- 
eral States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. [Adopted in 1913.] 

Article XVII. Section 1. The Senate of the United States shall be com- 



xxviii CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

posed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six 
years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall 
have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the 
State Legislatures. 

Section 2. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in 
the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election 
to fill such vacancies: Provided that the Legislature of any State may empower 
the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the 
vacancies by election as the Legislature may direct. 

Section 3. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election 
or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. 
[Adopted in 1913.] 

Article XVIII. Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this 
article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, 
the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from, the United 
States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage pur- 
poses is hereby prohibited. 

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concunent 
power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been 
ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the 
several States, as provided by the Constitution, within seven years from the 
date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. [Adopted 
in 1919.] 

Article XIX. Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to 
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on 
account of sex. 

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by ap 
propriate legislation. 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, 209, 337, 341, 346. 380 
Acadia (a-ka'di-a), 93, 129-130 
Acts of Congress, see Congress 
Acts of Parliament, see Parliament 
Adams, John, 161 (portrait), 163, 208; 

as President, 223-225, 227 
Adams, John Quincy, 257, 2S0; as 

President, 286, 308 
Adams, Samuel, 141 (portrait), 144, 158, 

204 
Admiralty Courts, 118 
Aeroplanes, 439-440 
Africa, 3, 309, 330 
Agricultural High Schools, 469-470 
Agriculture, see Farming 
Alabama, 272, 273, 352, 401, 44s, 449 
Alabama, cruiser, 368; Claims, 405 
Alaska, 310, 406-407, 452, 490; area, 

Appendix, xi 
Albany, 63, 64, 92; Congress, 127 
Alden, John, 36, 
Alexander II, of Russia, 406 
Algonquin (al'-g(5n-kwin) Indians, 20, 87 
Allegheny Mountains (al'-e-ga-nl), 18 
Allen, Ethan, 155 
Alsace-Lorraine, 411 
Amendments, see Constitution 
America, discovery of, 4; origin of name, 

7; early, explorations in, 8-13, 29, 

62-63, 86-95 
American Federation of Labor, 461 
Americus Vespucius (a-mSr' I-cus v8s- 

pu-shus), 7 
Anderson, Major Robert, 355-356 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 116 (portrait) 
Antietam, battle of, 379 
Apaches (a-pii' cha), 425 
Appalachian Mountains, 16-19, 29, 83, 

362 
Appalachian Valley, 18, 362-363, 376 



Appomattox (5p' p6-mat' twks), 393 
Arbitration, in labor disputes, 463; in- 
ternational, 528 
Architecture, colonial, 97 
Argentine Republic, 279 
Argonne Forest, 524 
Arizona, 386; as a state, 451, 456, 494 
Arkansas, 9, 310; as a state, 341, 357, 

384 
Arkwright, Richard, 215 
Arnold, Benedict, 168, 182 
Arthur, C. A., app., vii 
Articles of Confederation, 163 
Ashburton Treaty, 313 
Astoria, 238 
Atchison, Kas., 343 
Atlanta, 301-392, 445 
Augusta, Ga., 82, 295 
Austin, Moses and Stephen, 306-307 
Austria, 123, 126; 241; and Hungary, 

411-412, 498, 500, 525, 526 
Automobile, 439-440 

Balboa (bal-bo' a), 5-6 

Baltimore, 60, 130, 256, 295, 2g6, 359, 434, 

441 
Baltimore, Lord, 56-60 (portrait) 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 295-296, 

324 
Bank notes, 296-297, 381 
Bank of the United States, first, 211-212; 

second, 296-297 
Baptists, 108 

Barbados (bar-ba' doz), 72, 78 
Barton, Clara, 387 
Battle-ship, defined, 126 
Batts, Captain Thomas, 29 
Beauregard (bo' rhe-gard), General, 368 
Belgium, 503, 524 
Bell, Alexander Gtajjarn, 433 



XXX 



[NDEX 



Bennington, battle of, 168 
Benton, Senator, 284, 312 

Berkeley, sir William, 71 
Berlin-Bagdad route, 498, 500 
1 hut, Henry, 435 
Bienville il"" 'in' vol), 95 
Birmingham, Ala., 445 
Blaine, James G., 417 

I 'lis, 252-255, 365-366 

Blue Ridge Mountains, iS 

Bohemia, see Czecho-slovakia, 

Bolivar (bol'i varj, 270 

Bonaparte (bo' Na-pttrt), Napoleon, 234, 

230-231, 240-245; portrait, 243 
Boone, Daniel, 175, 234 
Bosses, political, 490-491 
Boston, 44-45, 97, no, 140, 141-146, 

149-157, 296, 468 
Bowling Green, Ky., 364, 374 
Braddock, General, 128 
Braddock's Road, 1 75 
Bradford, William, 36 
Bragg, General, 376 
Brandywine, battle of, 16S 
Breckinridge, J. C, 350, 352 
Brewster, William, 35-36 
Bridgport, Conn., 441 
Brockton, Mass., 441 
Brooklyn, 66, 165 
Brotherhoods, Locomotive Engineers, 

Firemen, Trainmen, .!<>i 
Brown, John, 343, 340 
Brush, C. I'., 434 
Bryan, William J., 420-421 
Bryant, William Cullen, 304 
Buccaneers, (biic' ca neer), 72 
Buchanan (bti-kan' an), Janu-s, vt f >, 353. 

355. 357 
Buell, General, 375 

Buena Vista (bwfi'na vls-ta), battle of, 317 
Buffalo, 326, 430, 434 
Bulgarian immigration, 450 
Bull Run, battles of, first, 368-370; 

second, 378 
Bunker Hill, battle of, 153-154 
Burgoyne (bur-goin '), General, 1(17-168 
Burnsidc, General, 379 

Cabinet, President's, 20S-209, 487 



Cable, Atlantic, 433 

Cable, George W\, 475 

Cabot (kab'iit), 12-13 

Cahokia (ka-hf>' kl-a), 95 

Calhoun (kal-hoon), John C, 246, 285, 
291-292,313,338,353; portrait, 291 

California, under Spanish rule, 193-194; 
annexation of, 313, 315-321; as a 
• s tatc, 336, 338, 340, 423, 428, 452-453. 
494 

Calvert, Cecil, 56 

Calvert, Leonard, 56-57 

Cambridge, Mass., 45, 48, 52 

Canada, under French rule, 86-93; 
English conquest of, 121-134; under 
English rule, 1.52, 174, 193, 249-252, 
309-310; Dominion of, 407-40S; 
Northwest, 451-452 

Canning, George, 280 

Carnegie Institution, 470 

Carolinas, 78, 94, 95, 108; see further, 
North and South Carolina 

Caroline, French Fort, 1 1 

Carpet-Baggers, 401-402 

Carson, New, 424 

Carrier (kar' ty ei), Jacques, 12 

Cartwright, Edmund, 216 

Carver, John, 37, 38 

Cass, Lewis, 338 

Catholics, see Roman Catholics 

Caucus, "King," 284-285 

Centennial Exposition, 403-404, 440 

Central Pacific Railroad, 423—424 

Cervera (thjr-vS' rii), 47S 

Champlain (-ham plan), Samuel dc, 86, 87 

Chancellorsville, battle of, 381 

('banning, W. E., 299 

Charles I, 43-44, 53, 56 

Charles IT, 53, 71, 73, 91 

Charleston, S. C, 78, 140, 144, 1(15, 1 ;, 

202, 355-356, 362, 364, 398 
Charlestown, Mass., 45, 157 

Charlotte, X. C, 415-446 
Charters, colonial, 1 15—116, 122 
' S I'., 339 

Chautauqua Assemblies, 474 

Chateau-Thierry, 522 
Chattanooga, Tenn., 362, 364, 375, 388, 
445 



INDEX 



XXXI 



Chesapeake, The, 244 

Chicago, 250, 265, 324, 325, 326, 327, 

427, 430, 437, 440, 458, 473, 474 
Chicago University, 470 
Chickamauga (chik' a-mo' ga), battle of, 

389 
China, 322; immigrants from, 423, 459, 

480 
Cibola (thl b5 la), 10 
Cincinnati, 200, 265, 326, 427 
Cities, growth of, 80, 97; government of, 

490-492; planning, 493 
Civil Service Reform, 415-416 
Civil War, 354-395 
Claiborne, William, 58, 67 
Clark, George Rogers, 177-178 
Clark, William, 235-238 
Clay, Henry, 246, 249, 278, 286, 287, 

288, 313, 338-339 (portrait) 
Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain), 475 
Clermont, The, 264 
Cleveland, 265, 268, 326, 327, 437 
Cleveland, Grover, 417 (portrait), 419, 

462, 480 
Clinton, De Witt, 268 
Clinton, George, app., iii 
Clinton, General Henry, 181, 182, 184 
Clipper ships, 327 
Coal, 217, 260, 444-445, 452 
Colfax, Schuyler, app., vi 
Colleges, 51-52, 106-107,301-302,470-471 
Colombia, United States of, 279 
Colonial architecture, 97 
Colonial system, old, 116-118, 136-146; 

new, 289, 309, 498 
Colonies, British, see under names, Can- 
ada, etc. 
Colorado, 386; as a state, 428-429, 454, 

494 
Columbia, S. C, 445 
Columbia River, 236 
Columbian Exposition, 440 
Columbus, 2-5 
Columbus, Ky., 373, 374 
Commerce, 104, 133, 136-137, 183-184, 

201-202, 221-222, 231, 242-^246 
Commerce, Department of, 487 
Commercial High Schools, 469 
Commission plan of city government, 492 



Compromise of 1850, 338-340 

Conciliation, Boards of, 463 

Concord, battle of, 149-150 

Conestoga (con'-es to'-ga) wagons, 267 

Confederate States, 352-395 

Congregationalists, 46, 108 

Congress, Albany, 127; Stamp Act, 137- 
138; Continental, 146-147, 157, 158, 
1 S9> 1 t>3> !82, 197-202; first National, 
209-212 

Congress, Acts of, early 209-211; Em- 
bargo, 244-245; Non-Intercourse, 245- 
246; Tariff of 1816, 263; National 
Road, 266-267; Missouri Comprom- 
ise, 276-278; Tariff of 1833, 292; 
Compromise of 1S50, 338-339; Kansas 
and Nebraska Bill, 341-343; Home- 
stead Act, 344; Reconstruction, 396- 
403; Civil Service Act, 415-416; 
Interstate Commerce Act, 418 

Connecticut, colonial, 48-49, 103, 106, 
113, 116, 122; in the Revolution, 
138, 161; as a state, 198 

Conservation, 455-456, 530 

Constitution, formed, 204-207; amended, 
227, 398, 401, 496; app. xvi 

Constitution, The, 253-254 

Continental Congress, see Congress, Con- 
tinental 

Continuation Schools, 474 

Conventions, 284-285 

Cooper, James Fennimore, 303-304 

Cooper, Peter, 295 

Cooperation, 465-466 

Corinth, Miss., 364, 375 

Cornell, Ezra, 327, 471 

Cornell University, 471 

Cornwallis, 166, 185-186 

Coronado (ko-ro-na' do), 10 

Correspondence, committees of, 143-144 

Cortez (kor' -teth), 8 

Cotton, 98, 218, 219, 259, 260, 333~334t 
366, 388, 443 

Cotton-gin, 218-219 

Cotton-seed oil, 446 

Crockett, David, 307 

Cromwell, Oliver, 53 

Cuba, 4, 132, 279, 341, 477-479, 48a 

Cumberland Gap, 175 



XXX 11 



INDEX 



Cumberland National Road, 266-267 
Cumberland River, 303, 364, 374 
Curasao (koo' rii-sd'), 72 
Curtis, George William, 415 
Custer, General, 425 

Czecho-slovakia, immigrants from, 45a; 
in the Great War, 526 

Dallas, G. M., app., v 

Dartmouth College, 106 

Davenport, John, 48 

Davis, Jefferson, 273-274, 33g, 352, 353 

(portrait) 
Dearborn, Fort, 250 
Debt, public, 200-210, 381, 394-395 
1 )rl. tors, imprisonment of, 80, 299-300 
Declaration of Independence, 159, 160; 

app. xiii 
Delaware, 60, 74, 80, 205, 207, 398 
Democratic party, 212, 288, 345, 346, 350 

352. 38o» 381, 393, 402, 417, 418, 419, 

420-421 
Denver, 494 

De Soto (da so' to), Ferdinand, 8-1 1 
Detroit, 90, 91, 133, 176, 1JJ, 196, 250, 

252. 324. 326, 327 
Dewey, Commodore George, 478 
Diaz, (dee' iith), 3 
Dickinson, John, 163 (portrait) 
Dinwiddie, Governor, 125 
Dissenters, 73, 78 

District of Columbia, 210, 227, 340, 380 
Dollar, Spanish, 105, 197 
Donelson, Fort, 374 
Douglas, Frederick, 3g8 
Douglas, Stephen A., 339, 344, 345-346. 

350. 352, 357 
Drake, Francis, 12 
Dred Scott affair, 344-345 
Dress, colonial, 1 10 
Duquesne (dil-kan'), Fort, 125, 128, 130, 

>3i 
Duquesne, Governor, 124, 125 
Dutch, see New Nethcrland 
Dynamo, 433~434 

I I I India Companies, 22, 63, 144-145 
Fast Liverpool, O., 441 
Eaton, Theophilus, 48 



Ecuador, 279 

Education, colonial, 50-52, 105-107; nat- 
ional, 300-302; in South, 448-449; 
new, 467-476 

Edison, T. A., 434 

Eggleston, Edward, 475 

Electoral College, 206, 223, 227 

Electricity, 433~435 

Elizabeth, Queen, 13, 73 

Emancipation, 379-380, 398 

Embargo, 244-245, 259 

Emigration, "great," to Virginia, 44, 53, 
71; to West Indies, 71-73; to Penn- 
sylvania, 75-76; second great, 80, 
82; sec Immigration 

Employers' Association, 463 

Endicott, John, 44 

England, early explorations and settle- 
ments, 12-13, 21, 22-23; see under 
Virginia, Massachusetts, etc.; Ci\ il 
War in, 53; struggle with the Dutch, 
66-69; struggle with Trance, 91-95, 
121-134; colonial policy, 112-120; 
quarrel with American colonies, 136- 
148; Revolutionary War, 149-190; 
Industrial Revolution, 215-217; Trade 
disputes with I'. S., 221-222, 242-246; 
war with France, 230, 231, 240-246; 
Oregon question, 238, 311, 313, 316, 
317; War of 1812, 249-258; American 
tariff, 263; Monroe Doctrine, 280-281; 
suffrage in, 283, 289; new colonial 
policy, 309-310; during American 
Civil War, 367-368, 380; Alabama 
Claims, 405; recent reform in, 40S-410; 
growth of colonies, 477; in the Great 
War, 502-524 

Episcopal church, 34, 73, 108 

Ericsson (5r' ik-siin), John, 377 

Erie, Lake, battle of, 251-252 

Erie, Pa., 124, 251 

Erie Canal, 267-268, 273, 295, 296, 310 

Espanola (£s-pan y6' la), 72 

Essex, The, 253-254 

Evm t tHne, the poem, 130 • 

Exports, from the colonies, 104-105, 133; 
during Revolution, 183-184; from the 
United States, 201-202, 224-225, 242- 
243, 427. 43o; app., xv 



INDEX 



XXXlll 



Exposition, Centennial, 403-404; later, 
440, 449 

Factory system, 217, 259, 432, 464-465 

Fairbanks, C. W., app., viii 

Fall River, Mass., 441 

Fallam, Robert, 29 

Falmouth, Me., 170 

Faneuil (fan' el) Hall, picture of, 114 

Farming, in the colonies, 99-101; in the 
South, 219; 334, 399, 443-444; recent 
progress, 430, 455-456, 465-466 

Farm Loan Systems, 489 

Farragut (far' d-gut), D. G., 375, 392 

Federal Convention, 204-206; see Con- 
stitution 

Federal Reserve System, 489 

Federalist party, 212, 233, 255, 287 

Ferdinand VII, of Spain, 279 

Fisheries, 104, 257 

Florida, 8, 80, 132, 188, 193; purchase of, 
278 (area, app., x); as a state, 341, 
352, 401 443, 444, 447 

Forestry, 456 

Fox, George, 73 

France, early explorations and settle- 
ments, 12, 19; in West Indies, 72; 
in Acadia, Canada, and Mississippi 
Valley, 86-95; struggles with the 
English, 91-93, 121-134; aid in Revo- 
lutionary War, 179-188; French Revo- 
lution, 220-221; American disputes 
with, 221-225; sa l e °f Louisiana, 229- 
232; Napoleonic wars, 240-245; Mon- 
roe Doctrine, 280-281; Revolution of 
1830, 289; Civil War in U. S., 366; 
Mexican affair, 405-406; Third Re- 
public, 411; new colonial empire, 477; 
in the Great War, 502-524 

Franklin, Benjamin, writings, 107; plan 
of union, 127; in France, 179-180; 
portrait, 180; at the Federal Con- 
vention, 204 

Frederick the Great, 123, 126 

Fredericksburg, battle of, 379 

Freedmen, 398-399 

Free Soil party, 337 

French and Indian War, 1 21-13 2 

French Revolution, 215, 220-221 



Friends, Society of, 73 
Frontenac (froN' te-nak), Fort, 130 
Fruit farms, 453 
Fugitive Slave Law, 336-337 
Fulton, Robert, 264 

Fur trade, 41, 65, 67, 82, 90-91, 238, 280, 
310 

Gadsden Purchase, 319; map, 318 

Gage, General, 149, 151, 156 

Gallatin (gal'd-tin), Albert, 229 

Galveston Tex., 447, 492 

Gama (ga.' ma), Vasco da, 3 

Garfield, James A., 415 (portrait), 416 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 299, 337, 398 

Gas-engines, 439-4^.^ 

Gates, General, a 68, 179, 184 

Genet (zhch-na'), 221 

George II, 81 

George III, 137 

Georgia, 81-82, 207, 218, 219, 334, 352 

Germans, settlements of, 76, 82; later 
immigration of, 271, 330-332 

Germantown, Pa., 76 

Germany, 271, 331, 410-411, 477, 498-524 

Gerry, Elbridge, app., iii 

Gettysburg, battle of, 382-383 

Girls, education of, 106, 302 

Gladstone, W. E., 405 

Gloversville, N. Y., 441 

Gold, discoveries of, 319-321, 386, 452 

Government, colonial, 112-116; reor- 
ganization during the Revolution, 
1 61-164; federal, 204-207; changes in 
Jackson's time, 283-284; recent chan- 
ges, 490-496 

Grand Rapids, Mich., 446 

Grangers, 465-466 

Grant, U. S., 374~375, 383. 389, 39i» 393, 
394, 402; portrait, 389, 413-414 

Gray, Captain, 238 

Great Britain, see England 

Great Lakes, 87, 264, 325 

Greek, study of, 106 

Greece, immigrants from, 459; and the 
Great War, 505 

Greeley, Horace, 329, 354 (portrait), 
414 

Greenbacks, 381 



XXXIV 



INDEX 



Green Mountain Boys, 155, 168 
Greene, Nathaniel, 185-186 

Grenville, George, 136-137 

Guam (gwam), 470; area, app., xi 
Guerriere (gar-ry ar), The, 253-254 
Guilford Court House, battle of, 1S5 
Guthrie, Okla., 451 

Haiti (ha' tli, 72, 484 

Ildlj Moon, The. 62, 63 

Hamilton, Alexander, 204, 208, 209, 210 

(portrait), 211-212, 227 
Hamlin, Hannibal, app., vi 
Hancock, General, 382 
Hanover, X. II., io<> 
Hargreaves, James, 215-216 
Super's Ferry, .vi<>-347 

Harris Joel C., 475 

Harrison, Benjamin, 418 (portrait) 

Harrison, \V. II., 240, 313 

Harrodsburg, Ky., 175 

Hartc, Bret, 476 

Hartford, Ct., 48, 66 

Harvard College, 52, 106, 141 

Havana, 132, 478 

Hawaii (hii-wl'e), 321, 480 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 304 

Hay, John, 483 

Hayes, R. B., 402 (portrait), 414 

1 l.iyne, Senator, 292 

Hendricks, T. A., app., vii 

Henry, Fort, 374 

Henry, Patrick, 134, 138-139 (portrait), 

158, 177.204 
I [essian soldiers, 165 
High Point, N. C, 446 
High Schools, 51-52, 301, 468-470 
Hobart, G. A , app., viii 
Holland, 34, 182, 188 
I [omestead Law, 344 
Hooker, General, 389 
Hooker, Thomas, 48 
Hoover, Herbert C, 518 
Hopkins Grammar School, 52 
11..1; eof Representatives, see Congress 
Houston, Sam, 307 
I [owe, Klias, ,;>o 
Howe, General, 151, 156, 165, 166, 167, 

168, 171, 181 



Howells, William D., 476 

Hudson, Henry, 62-63 

Hudson Bay Company, 91-92, 310— 311 

Huguenot (hu' ge'-not), 79 

Hull, Captain Isaac, 253-254 

Hull, < ieneral, 250 

Hungary, 41 1-412 

Iberville (? bfir veT), 94-95 

Idaho, 238, 317, 386, 429, 454, 455, 494 

Illinois, under French rule, 95, 121; 
Clark's expedition to, 177; as a terri- 
tory, 213, 272, 273; as a state, 296, 
301, 494 

Immigration, see emigration; after 1815, 
271; after 1845, 330-332; after Civil 
War, 386, 426, 452, 458-460 

Impeachment, 400-401 

Impressment of >eamen, 243-244, 257 

Indentured servants, 27-28, 83-84 

Independence, Declaration of, 159-160 

Independents, see Separatists 

India, 2, 3, 5, 120, 136 

Indiana, Clark's expedition to, 178; as a 
territory, 213, 272, 273; as a state, 274, 
283, 301, 494 

Indian Territory, 425, 450, 451 

Indians, ig-21; attack Virginians, 32; 
in New England, 39-40, 47, 50; in 
Maryland, 57; in New Nethcrland, 
65~6(>; in Pennsylvania, 76-77; mis- 
sionaries to, 00; as allies, 92-93; in 
French and Indian War, 127-128; 
in Pontiac's War, 133; in Kentucky 
and Tennessee 176-177; Spanish 
missions among, 193-194; Wayne's 
victory' over, 213; in Louisiana Terri- 
tory, 235-2.;''; fight at Tippecanoe, 246; 
Creek, 278; recent wars with, 425; 
become citizens, 450-451 

Industries, colonial, 101-104; during 
Revolution, 172-173; development of, 
215-219, 259-262, 328-330, 385, 432, 
441, 443-449, 452-456, 458-4"'' 

Industrial Democracy, 463-464 
Initiative, 405 

Internal Improvements, 163—269 
Interstate Commerce Act, 418 
Inventions, 215-219, 326-330, 433-440 



INDEX 



XXXV 



Iowa, 302, 310, 331, 341, 426, 494 

Ireland, 271, 330-331 

Iron, 103, 217, 260, 435-438. 44s 

Iroquois (ir-6-kwoi'), 10-21, 92, 127 

Irving, Washington, 303 

Italy, 411, 459, 460 

Jackson, Andrew , victory at New Orleans, 
256-257; and Creeks, 278; Presi- 
dency, 288, 291-292, 296-298, 307- 
308; portrait, 285 

Jackson, "Stonewall," 370, 382 

James I, 22-24, 34. 43 

James II, 68, 91-92, 116 

Jamestown, Va., 24-33; fair at, 449 

Japan, 322; laborers of, 459, 480 

Jay, John, 208, 222, 223 (portrait) 

Jefferson, Thomas, in the Revolution, 
160, 163; in France, 204; in the Cab- 
inet, 208-209; founder of Democratic 
party, 212; Vice-President, 224; Presi- 
dency, 227-238, 242-245; founds 
University of Virginia, 302 

Jenckes, Thomas, 415 

Jesuit missions, 87, 90 

Johns Hopkins University, 470 

Johnson, Andrew, 397 (portrait), 399-401 

Johnson, R. M., app., iv 

Johnston, A. S., 375 

Johnston, J. E„ 378 

Joliet (zho' le-a'), Louis, 87-88 

Jones, John Paul, 182-183 (portrait) 

Jugo-Slavs, 500, 526 

Jumonvi'le (zhu' mon' veT), 126 

Jury, trial by, 32 

Kansas, 10, 237; struggle in, 341-345; 

as a state, 438, 451, 494 
Kansa.3 City, 311, 427, 430 
Kansas and Nebraska Bill, 341-342 
Kaskaskia (kas kas' ki a), 95, 177 
Kearny (kar' ni), General, 317 
Kentucky, settlement of, 175, 178, 200; 
Mississippi question in, 203; admitted 
to Union, 213; as a state, 273, 275, 
276, 283; in Civil War, 368, 374; 
slavery in, 398 
Key West, 447-448 
King, W. R., app., v 



King William's War, 92 
King's Mountain, battle of, 184 
Knights of Labor, 461 
Knox, Henry, 208 
Knoxville, Tenn., 362, 445 
Kosciuzko, 181 
Ku Klux Klan (ku kluks), 402 

Labor, Department of, 487 

Labor Unions, 460-463 

Lafayette (la fa'ySt'), 180, 186, 220-221, 
288 

Lake Champlain, battle of, 252 

Lake Erie, battle of, 251-252 

Lands, Public, 198-199, 272-273, 426—428 

La Salle (la sal'), 89 

Latin, study of, 106 

Lawrence, Kas., 343 

Laws, see Acts 

Lee, R. E., 359, 370, 378-379, 381-383. 
390-394 

Legislatures, colonial, 31-32, 41, 50, 
58-59, 68, 1 1 2-1 1 6, 137-138; state, 
161-162 

Leland Stanford University, 470 

Lewis, Meriwether, 235-236 

Lexington, battle of, 149-151 

Leyden (li' den), 34-35 

Liberal Republican Party, 413-414 

Liberty Loans, 520 

Libraries, colonial, 32, 51; traveling, 473 

Lincoln, Abraham, youth of, 273-275; 
candidate for Senate, 345-346; Presi- 
dency, 350, 352, 355-357, 365, 379-381, 
389, 393-394, 397, 399 

Linotype, 438 

Lithuanian immigrants, 459 

Locomotives, early, 294-295 

Longfellow, H. W., 130, 304 

Long Island, 66 

Lookout Mountain, battle of, 389 
Los Angeles, 194, 495 
Louis XVI, 89, 179, 180, 220, 221 
Louisburg, 130 

Louisiana, 89; under French rule, 94-95; 
Spanish, 132, 202, 223; Purchase of, 
229-233; admitted to Union, 273; 
slavery in, 276; in Civil War, 352, 375, 
384; industry in, 444 



XXXVI 



INDEX 



Ix>uisville, Ky., 200, 265 

Lowell, J. R., 340 

Loyalists, 160, 168, 173-174. '84. 249 

Lumber trade, early, 104 

Lundy's Lane, battle of, 250-251 

Lusitania, 509 

Lynn, Mass., 45, 103 

Lyon, Captain, 359 

Lyon, Man,-, 302 (portrait) 

Macdonough, Commander, 252 

Machine tools, 437 

Mackinac, go, 250 

Madison, James, during Revolution, 163; 
in Philadelphia Convention, 204-205 
(portrait); Presidency, 240, 245-248 

Magazines, 302-303 

Magellan, Ferdinand, 2, 6-7 

Magyar (Hungarian) immigrants, 459 

Maine, admitted to Union, 27,8; boundary 
dispute, 293 

Maine, The, 478 

Manassas Junction, 364, 368 

Manhattan Island, 63-64; see New York 
City 

Manila, 132, 478, 479 

Manitoba, 451 

Mann, Horace, 299-300 (portrait) 

Manual Training High Schools, 468 

Marconi, 434 

Maria Theresa, 123, 126 

Marietta, 200 

Marion, Francis, 184 

Markham, William, 76 

Marquette (miir kft ), 87 

Marshall, T. R. app., ix 

Martinique (mar' tin-neck), 72 

Maryland, founding of, 56-60; religion 
in, 108; government of, 113; in French 
and Indian War, 129; attitude toward 
state land claims, 10S; gives District 
of Columbia, 227; slavery in, 334, 398; 
in Civil War, 358 

Mason and Slidell, 367 

Massachusetts, settlement of, 34 - 53; 
Indian raids, 92-93; colonial industries, 
103, 104; education, 105; government, 
114, 115, 116; land claims, 122, toj; 
resists parliament, 138, 140-146; in 



the Revolution, 140-157, 161; Shays' 
Rebellion, 201 ; ratifies Constitution, 
207; in 1812 War, 255; slavery in, 
276; boundary dispute, 293; early 
railroads of, 296; reforms in, 299-300; 
shoe trade, 334 soldiers in Civil War, 
357 

Massachusetts Agricultural College, 471 
Institute of Technology, 471 

Massachusetts Bay Company, 44 

Massasoit, 40 

Maximilian, Emperor, 406 

Mayflower, The, 36-37 

McClellan, G. B., 368, 370, 376-378, 393 

M> ('<>rmick, Cyrus, 328-329 

M< Dowell, General, 369, 378 

McKay, Gordon, 385 

Mckinley, William, 419 (portrait), 420- 

421.477 

Meade, General, 382-383, 390 

Meat trade, 265, 427 

Memphis, Tenn., 362, 364, 375 

Menendez (ma-nSn deth), 11 

Merrimac, The, 376-377 

Mexico, conquest of, 8; missions of, 
193-194; independence of, 279; war 
with, 306-308, 316-319, 405-406; Maxi- 
milian in, 406 

Michigan, territory, 213, 250, 252, 301; 
as a state, 341, 436 

Michigan Central Railroad, 324 

Middle Ages, defined, 2 

Miles, General, 479 

Milwaukee, 265, 327 

Mining, 454; see also Gold 

Minneapolis, 430 

Minnesota, 324, 426, 436; admitted to 
Union, app., vi 

Mint, U.S., 211 

Minute-men, 149 

Missionary Ridge, battle of, 389 

Missions, Spanish, 11-12, 193-194, 3°6, 
315; French, 87 90 

Mississippi, as a state, 273, 274; secedes 
352; Reconstruction in, 401 

Mi- i -ippi River, g, 87-89, 202, 223, 230, 

363. 374-375. 383 
Missouri, explorations in, 234, 235, 272; 
admitted to Union, 276-278; early 



INDEX 



XXXVll 



trade of, 310; in Kansas struggle, 313; 

in Civil War, 358-359; slavery in, 398 
Missouri Compromise, 276, 278, 342 345 
Mobile, Ala., 95, 392 
Mohawk River, 18, 66 
Molasses Act, see Sugar Act 
Money, 105, 197-198, 381 
Monitor, The, 376-377 
Monmouth, battle of, 181 
Monroe, James, 280-281 
Monroe Doctrine, 280-281, 405-406, 484 
Montana, 236, 386, 428-429, 454, 455, 494 
Montcalm, 131-132 
Monterey, battle of, 317 
Montgomery, Ala., 352 
Montreal, 12, 91, 95, 159 
Mormons, 320, 429, 455 
Morse, S. F. B., 326-327 
Morton, L. P., app., vii 
Mount Holyoke Seminary, 302 
Mount Vernon, 190 
Moyne, Pierre le, 94 
Muir, John, 476 
Murfreesboro, battle of, 376 

Napoleon I, 224, 230-232, 240-245, 279 

Napoleon III, 405-406, 411 

Nashville, 336, 364, 374, 392 

National Association of Manufacturers, 
463 

National Farmers' Alliance, 465-466 

National (Cumberland) Road, 266-267 

Natural gas, 438, 444-445 

Navigation Acts, 116-11S, 136 

Nebraska, 341-345, 426, 428, app., xi 

Needham, James, 29 

Nelson, Lord, 230, 241 (portrait) 

Netherland, New, 19, 62-69 

Nevada, 386, 429, 494 

New Amsterdam, 63-69 

New England, beginnings of, 34-53; 
early trade of, 103, 104; local govern- 
ment in, 112, 113; attitude toward 
War of 1 81 2, 245, 254-255; recent 
industries of, 432 

New Hampshire, 48-49, 106 

New Haven, 48, 49, 50, 52 

New Jersey, beginnings of, 68, 80; edu- 
cation in, 106, 474; religion, 108; 



under Andros, 116; in the Revolution, 
170; in Philadelphia Convention, 
206-207; slavery in, 219; industries of, 
432 

New Mexico, 193, 336, 338, 339, 342, 451, 
456 

New Orleans, 95, 132, 223, 231, 256-257, 
260, 265, 266, 326, 375, 447, 492 

Newport, R. I., 48, 170, 182 

New York, colonial, 63-69, 80, 103, 114, 
116, 121; in the Revolution, 138, 158, 
160, 164-165, 167, 168, 170; land 
claims, 198; and the new Constitution, 
205, 207; Erie Canal, 267-268; rail- 
roads of, 296; industry in, 432; adopts 
Civil Service Reform, 417; education 
in, 47i. 474 

New York City, 63-69, 97, 107, 138, 139, 
140, 144, 157, 164-165, 181, 186, 195, 
268, 387, 414, 491 

Newspapers, 107, 196, 302, 303, 329, 

474-475 

Nicaragua, 485 

Nonconformists, 43-44 

North Carolina, colonial, 78-80, 121; 
in Revolution, 184-185; and the Con- 
stitution, 207 (app., ii); University of, 
301; slavery in, 334, 357; in the Civil 
War, 371, 393; later events in, 446 

North Dakota, 235, 236, 426, 428 

Northwest Territory, 108-200, 213 

Nova Scotia, 129, 174, 309 

Oberlin College, 302 

Ogden, Utah, 424 

Oglethorpe, James, 80-82 

Ohio, under French rule, 123-130; as an 
Indian territory, 132; settlement of, 
174, 198-200, 213; admitted to Union, 
213; as a state, 268, 283, 301, 438 

Ohio Company, first, 123-124; of 1787. 
199-200 

Oil, discovery of 386, 444 

Oklahoma, 237, 438, 450-451 

Omaha, 424, 427, 430, 441 

Ordinance of 1787, 198-200 

Oregon, explorations in, 236, 238; ques- 
tion of, 258; claimed by Russia, 280; 
Hudson Bay Company in, 300-310; 



\\\\ 111 



INDEX 



American settler" in, 312 annexed, 
316-317; admitted to Union, 336; 

recent events in, 453, 494 
Otis, James, 133, 138 

( )cean, 5-6 

Page, Thomas N., 475 

Paine, Thomas 158-159 

Panama Canal, 482-484 

Panic of 1837, 297-298; of 1873, 424-425 

Paper money, 105, 171-172, 297, 381 

Parkman, Francis, 312, 476 

Parliament, English, 31, 43-44, 114. 137; 
Acts of, Sugar Act, 117-118; Sugar 
Act of 1764, 136; Stamp Act, 137-140; 
Townshend Acts, 141 ; Intolerable Ad 5, 
145; Quebec Act, 145; Reform Act i 
289, 409 

Parson's Cause, 134 

Parties, see under party names 

Pastorius, 76 

Patroons, 64-65 

Payne, John II., 304 

Penn, William, 73-78 (portrait) 

Pennsylvania, settlement of, 73-78; 
Germans in, 76, 82; Scotch-Irish in, 
82; education in, 105, 100; colonial 
government, 113; struggle with French, 
121, 129; Indian War, 13.5; I 
Stamp Act, 138; during Revolution, 
165, 168, 170, 171, 172, 1S1; slavery 
in, .mo; carls' railroad-, 294, 295, 290, 
recent industries of, 432, 438 

Terry, 0. H.. (51-252 

Pershing, John J., 517, 519 (portrait) 

Peru, 8, 270 

Petroleum discovered, 386 

Philadelphia, 70, 07, 107, 130, Ml. 168, 
170, 204, 285, 3*4i 4°3i 4 ' 7, 44'. 458 
Philadelphia Convention, 204-207 
Philippine Islands, 1.;-, 279, 478-480 
Phonograph, 

Pil kens, Andrew, [84 
I !, ( icneral, 382 
Pier< e, Franklin, app., v 
Pike, Zebulon, 236-238 
Pili-rim , J 1-41 
Pitt, William, [30-134, 140 

Pitt iburg Landing Jhattle of, 375 



Pittsburgh, 123, 1,25, 130, 260, 265, 324, 
436, 462 

Pizarro (pf-thar' ro), 8 

Plantations, early, 27, 100-101; spread of, 
219. 2 75> 333-334.' failure of system, 
399. 443 

Playground movement, 473-474 

Plymouth, 34-41, 50 

Pocahontas, 25 

Poe, Edgar Allen, 304, 

Poland, immigrants from, 459; in the 
Great War, 526 

Polk, James K., 313, 315-319 

Polo Marco, 2 

Poutiac's War, 133 

Pony Express, 387 

Poor Richard's Almanac, 107 

Population, of early Virginia, 32, 71; of 
Plymouth, 41; by 1700, 80; by 1750, 
87; by 1783, 192; see appendix for 
census reports of 1790, etc.; at open- 
ing of Civil War, 361; later increase, 
3S0 

Port Royal, Acadia, 93 

Port Royal, S. C, 371 

Porter, Captain D. D., 254 

Portland, Ore., 440 

Porto Rico, 279, 479; area, app., xi 

Post Office, 196, 208, 327 

Presbyterians, 73, 108 

itt, Colonel William, 153-154 

Presidency, 205, 200, 207, 227, 284, 285, 

4I3-4- 1 ! 

Princeton, battle of, 166 
Princeton College, 106 
Printing, in the colonies, 107-108; ro- 
tary press, 329 
Privateers, 183 

Progressive Party, 489 
Protection, sec Tariff 
Providence, R. I., 47, 106, 259 
Prussia, 123, 126, 410-411 
Pulaski, 181 
Pullman, 111., 462 

Puritans, 43-44, 40, 50, 71, 74, 110 
Putnam, Israel, 1 [6, 151 

Quakers, 73-76, 108, it>o, 354 

Quartering Act, 140 



INDEX 



XXXIX 



Quebec, 86, 131-132, 156, 167; see under 

Canada 
Quebec Act, 145 
Queen Anne's War, 92 

Railroads, 294-296, 324-325, 361, 362, 

364, 368-369, 423-424. 452 
Raleigh (raw' II), Sir Walter, 13, 22 
Ranches, 426-429 
Randolph, John, 246 
Recall, 495-496 
Reconstruction, 399-402 
Redemptioners, 83-84 
Reed, Major Walter, 481 
Referendum, 495 
Religious liberty, 229, 284 
Representative system, i37 -I 38, 288-289 
Republican party, 344, 346, 350, 393, 402, 

413, 414, 417, 418, 419, 420-421 
Reservations, Indian, 425, 450 
Revere, Paul, 149-150 
Rhode Island, settlement of, 46-48, 50; 

early education in, 106; religion, 108; 

colonial government of, n 3-1 14; in 

Revolution, 161; paper money of, 201; 

and the Constitution, 207, app., xi; 

factories in, 259 
Rice, cultivation of, 100-101, 444 
Richmond, Va., 29, 359, 363, 364, 388, 

390. 393, 434, 449 
Riley, James W., 475 
Rip Van Winkle, 303 
Roads, 195, 266-267 
Robertson, James, 176 
Robinson, John, 35 
Rochambeau (ro shSN' bo), Count de, 

186-187 
Rockefeller Institution, 470 
Rolfe, John, 30 
Roman Catholics, 56-60, 87, 90, 108, 193- 

194 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 479, 486-488 
Roosevelt dam, 456 
Rough Riders, 479 
Roumania, 505, 526 
Russia, 126, 241-242, 245, 248, 280-281. 

406-407, 502, 504, 521 

Sacramento, Cal., 319, 424 
St. Augustine, 10 



St. Lawrence River, 12 

St. Louis, Mo., 234, 236, 265, 310. 324. 

359.374.427,44° 
St. Mary's, Md., 57 
St. Paul, Minn., 430, 492 
Salem, Mass., 44-45, 108-109 
Salt Lake, Utah, 424 
Samoan Islands, app., xi 
San Diego, Cal., 193 
San Francisco, 193, 319 
Sanitary Commission, 387 
San Martin, General, 279 
Santa Fe, 311 
Santiago (san-te-a go), 478 
Santo Domingo, 72, 230-231, 484 
Saratoga, battle of, 168 
Savannah, Ga., 81, 184, 392 
"Scalawags," 401 
Schenectady, 66, 92 

Schools, in Virginia, 32; in New England, 
50-52; colonial, 105-106; later, 300- 
303, 448, 467-474. 481 
Schurz, Carl, 331 
Schuyler (ski' ler), General, 168 
Scotch immigration, 82, 108 
Scott, Dred, 344~345 
Scott, General W., 250, 317 
Seattle, Wash., 452 

Secession, 292, 352 

Senate, 205, 206, 417, 418 

Separatists, 34, 46 

Serbia, 459, 500-502, 526 

Servants, indentured, 27-28, 83-84; see 
Slavery 

Seven Years' War, 126-132 

Seward, W. H., 339, 35°, 355. 4°7 

Sewing machines, 330 

Shafter, General, 478 

Shays' Rebellion, 201 

Shenandoah Valley, 362, 378, 391 

Sheridan, General, 391 

Sherman, J. S., app., viii 

Sherman, General W. T., 389, 390, 391- 

392 
Shiloh, battle of, 375 
Shoe and Leather trade, 103 
Short ballot, 492 
Siberia, 280 
Sioux, 425 



xl 



tNDEX 



Sitting Bull, 425 
ti-r, Samuel, 
avery, 28, 32, S2, 2ig, 275-276, 307, 
333-334. 336-338, 379-380, 398 

Sleepy Hollow, 303 

Smith, Captain John, 25-26 (portrait), 
37-38 

Smuggling, 117, 133-134, 144-145 

South, gS, 2gi, 333~334. 35», 352. 388, 
|02, 43a, 413-449 

South America, 270-281 

South Carolina, colonial, 78-S2, g8, 100, 
l*X, 138, 140, 144; in Revolution, 174, 
184-185; Nullification in, 292; slavery 
in, 334; in the Civil War, 352, 393; 
after the War, 401 

South Dakota, 428, 494, 4gs 

Spain, discoveries and exploration of, 3- 
12, 71-72, 80; colonial policy of, 
110-120; losses in Seven Years' War, 
132; missions in California, 193-194, 
315; gives up Louisiana, 230-231; 
loses American colonies, 279-281; war 
with, 477-481 

Spice Islands, a 

Spinning, 101, 215-21O, 218, 260-261 

Spoils System, 2S6-287, 414-417 

Springfield, Mass., 48, 172, 201 

"Squatter Sovereignty," 338 

Stage-coaches, 105, 267 

Standish, Miles, 36, 39, 304 

Stark, John, 151, 168 

Stamp Act, 137-140 

States, organization of, 161-162 

Staunton, Va., 492 

Steamboats, 264-265, 327-328, 435, 436 

Steam-engine, 216-217 

Steel, 103-104, 435-437 

Stephens, A. H., 339, 352 

Stephenson, George, 294 

Steuben, Baron, 180-181 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 400-40* 

Stevenson, Adlai E., app., viii 

Stowe, Harriet B., 341 

Strikes, 298, 401-462 

Stuyvesant (stl' v« sdnt), Peter, 67-68 
(portrait) 

Suffrage, 49-50, 283, 284, 4g4 

Sugar Acts, n 7-1 18, 133, 137 



Sumner, Charles, 33g, 400, 405 
Sumter, Fort, 355-35° 
Sumter, Thomas, 184 
Supreme Court, 205 

Tacoma, Wash., 452 

Taft, W. II., 410, 488-489 

Taney, Chief Justice, 344-345 

Tariff, early, 209-21 1 J of 1816, 263; 
of 1828 and 1833, 2gi-2g2; recent, 
48S, 489 

Taxation, 117-11S. 136, 137, 141, 142, 
209-211, 291-292, 381 

Taylor, Zachary, 316-317, 33S, 34° 

Tea, tax on, 142-143 

Technical High Schools, 468 

Tecumsefa (tS-kfim'se), 246, 250 

Telegraph, 326-327, 387, 433, 434 

Telephone, 433 

Tenement question, 460 

Tennessee, settlement of, 176; admitted 
to Union, 213; as a state, 276, 283, 285; 
secedes, 357 ; in the Civil War, 374, 375, 
388; Reconstruction of, 397; industry 
in, 44s 

Tennessee River, 176, 363, 364, 374 

Territories of the United States, North- 
west, ig8-20o; Louisiana, 229-238; 
Florida, 27S; Oregon, 310-313, 316- 
317; California, 317, 318-322; New 
Mexico, 31S; Alaska, 406-407, 452 

Texas, 193; independence of, 306-308; 
annexation of, 315, 318; in Civil War, 
384; industry in, 444 

Thanksgiving Day, 40, 45 

Thomas, General G. H., 389, 392 

Thoreau, Henry D., 304, 476 

Threshing machines, 100, 329 

Ticonderoga, 155 

Tilden, S. J., 402 

Tippecanoe, battle of, 246, 250 

Tobacco, 30, 100, 101, 116, 134, 184 

Toleration Act, 59 

Tompkins, D. D., app., iii 

Topeka, Kas., 343 

Tories, 160 

Toronto, 252 

Town meeting, 11 2-1 13 

Townshend Acts, 141-142, 143 



INDEX 



xli 



Trade, see Commerce, Fur Trade 

Trade Unions, 298, 460-463 

Trafalgar, battle of, 241 

Treaties, Paris (1763), 132; Paris (1783), 
188; Jay's 222-223; Ghent (1814), 
256-257; with Mexico, 318-319; to 
end Great War, 526-529 

Trent affair, 367-368 

Trenton, battle of, 165-166 

Troy, N. Y., 441 

Trusts, 440-441 

Turnpikes, 266 

Tuskeegee Institute, 449 

Twain, Mark, see Clemens, Samuel L. 

Tweed Ring, 491 

Tyler, John, 313 

Typewriter, 438 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 341 
Underground Railroad, 340 
Union Pacific Railroad, 423-424 
Universities, 301-302, 470-472 
Utah, 320, 338, 340, 429, 455, 494 

Valley Forge, 171 

Van Buren, Martin, 291, 299, 308, 338 

Van Rensselaer, 65 

Vanderbilt, " Commodore," 440 

Venezuela, 279 

Vermont, 213, 283 

Vespucius, Americus, 7 

Veto, 114-115, 205 

Vicksburg, 363, 383 

Victoria, Queen, 368 

Vincennes, 177 

Vincent, John H., 474 

Virgin Islands, 485 

Virginia, settlement of, 22-23, 7i» coloni- 
al industry in, 103; education in, 106, 
religion, 108, 229; conflict with French, 
121, 123, 124-125, 126, 128; resists 
Stamp Act, 138; during Revolution, 
142, 170, 185-1S6; land claims of, 197; 
ratifies Constitution, 207; debts of, 
210; gives land for capital, 227; Uni- 
versity of, 229, 301, 302; slavery in, 
229, 334,' secedes, 357; seat of War, 
363, 368-370, 376-370. 390-391, 393; 
after War, 396, 446, 448 



Vote, right to, 48, 283, 494 

Waltham, Mass., 260 

Wampum, 40 

Warren, Joseph, 149 

Washington, state of, 238, 317, 429, 453, 
4Q4 

Washington, D. C, 210, 227-228, 255 

Washington, Booker T., 449 

Washington, George, ancestors of, 71; 
in Ohio, 123-125; in French and 
Indian War, 128-129; resists parliamen- 
tary , measures, 141-146; commander- 
in-chief, 152-153, 155-156; captures 
Boston, 156-157; later campaigns, 
164-166, 168, 171, 186-187; between 
1783 and 1789, 189-190, 197, 200, 204; 
Presidency, 208-214, 220, 221-223; 
interest in a National Road, 266, 269; 
portraits, 155, 209 

Water power, 446-447, 455-456 

Waterbury, Conn., 172, 441 

Watt, James, 216 

Wayne, Anthony, 213 

Weaving, 101, 215-218, 260-261 

Webster, Daniel, 288, 292, 313, 338, 340 

Welland Canal, 309 

Wellington, Duke of, 249 

West Indies, 71-72, 104, 117, 133, 181, 
183, 201-202, 221, 224-225, 230, 242, 
481, 482, 484-485 

West Point, 182, 364 

West Virginia, 368, 438 

Western Reserve, 198 

Whale fishery, 104 

Wheeler, W. A., app., vii 

Wheeling, W. Va., 200, 266, 324 

Whig party, 288, 338, 344 

Whiskey Rebellion, 211 

White, Father, 57 

Whitney, Eli, 218-219 

Whittier, John G. 475 

Wilderness, battle of, 390-391 

Willard, Emma, 302 

William and Mary, college, 106 

Williams, Roger, 47-48, 59 

Will's Creek, 123 

Wilson, Henry, app., vii 

Wilson, James, 204-206 



Xlii INDEX 

W i! -II, Woodiow, 4x6, 495. 5". 5". 525 Yale College, 106 

Winthrop, John, 44 (portrait), 45 Yellow fever, 481 

Wi con in, ax, 332, 341, 469, 47a Yorktown, capture of, 186-187 

Witchcraft, 108-109 Young Mens' Christian Association, 

Wolfe, James, 1.51-132 474 

Woman Suffrage, 494 Young Womens' Christian Association, 

Workmen-' Compensation, 4°5 474 

Writs of Assistance, 133-134 

Wyoming, state, 429, 454, 455. 494 Zuni ( z6 ' n y*) Indians, 10, 19 

Wyoming Massacre, 176-177 




MAP OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

AND ITS POSSESSIONS 



*=5^ 



F 



ICO 



HAM A 



100 200 300 400 500 



Kej West*" 



B A H AM r \ NOTE: The maps of Hawaii, Samoa, Guam and 

'Bft I Wake Is. same scale as map of Philippine Islands. 




